Everything works out positively in the end, the man said. It had been a casual conversation up to that point, but that statement brought it to a shuddering halt.
I challenged him, of course, and he went on to explain. Things happen, he said, but it is our choice to be negative. We need to look for the upside. There are positive side effects to everything.
My body flooded with adrenaline and tears sprung to my eyes. I thought of my dear friend who is losing a loved one to cancer, and of my other close friend who has a severely disabled child. I thought, as always, of my own late sister, who died after a long and agonising illness. I tried to stay calm, but I became enraged at the man's ignorance, and at his own clearly privileged life.
You have to be extremely lucky, and/or extremely blinkered, to think that everything works out in the end. No one who has experienced or witnessed profound suffering can possibly believe that to be true. Hell, no one who has turned on the nightly news can think anything but the opposite. What are the positive side effects for the people of Syria, or for the victims of child trafficking, or for those living in famine?
I know that "everything has an upside" is just a defence mechanism against anxiety. People tell themselves that because they cannot cope with the reality – that life is random, and that horrible things happen, and that sometimes things don't work out at all.
Think what you want, but it is grossly unreasonable to impose this belief on other people. Insisting that there is an upside to everything only alienates us from other people's suffering. It negates their experience of grief and distress, by implying that they could avoid these feelings by thinking the "right" way.
Other twee statements are similarly offensive. For example:
God gives us only what we can handle. If this was the case there would be no suicide, no breakdowns, no depression, no feelings of hopelessness and despair.
Everything happens for a reason. This is conflating cause and effect. Sometimes good can come out of bad, but that doesn't mean the bad happened to create the good.
You need to think positive. Thinking positive will not cure cancer, or halt the progression of a terminal illness. Sometimes positive people die, and sometimes negative people survive. It's the luck of the draw, and we are all in the barrel.
She is in a better place now. My late sister (and my friend's stillborn baby and all the beloved people who died way too young) are not in a better place. The best place for them to be is here on earth, alive and healthy, with us.
Always look on the bright side. Sometimes there is no bright side, there is only endurance of the pain.
When we insist on putting a positive spin on tragedy, we are refusing to acknowledge people's pain and grief. We are so terrified of emotion we cut it off with a catchphrase, anything to avoid having to bear witness to human suffering.
But suffering is a part of the human experience, life is unfair, and tragedy can and does hit at random. And, as Megan Devine wrote of grief, some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.
You may call me negative for my beliefs – I'm sure the man I spoke to would – but in fact the opposite is true. There is tremendous resilience in facing life without blinkers; I know that bad things happen, and that good things happen, too. My pragmatism encourages me to enjoy the good as much as possible, and to cope with the bad as best I can.
What's more, I can be compassionate towards people who are suffering. I'm not scared of grief or distress, and I don't try to reason it away. I know from experience that some things can only be endured, and that all we can do is offer support and love.
And I will never tell a person that everything will work out in the end. It is facile, insensitive, privileged nonsense. Don't let anyone tell you that, either.
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