Why is it so difficult for us to focus on the positive when one negative thing can set our anxiety/depression wheel spinning for days?
There is a theory out there that the reason is rooted in evolution. Back 15,000 years or more, our ancestors had one job: to survive long enough to have sex and babies to keep the species alive. In the primitive conditions of the Ice Age, the only way to assure a long enough life span was to be hyper vigilant for anything that could threaten life and limb. Those individuals who caught the negative threat quickest were the fittest who survived long enough to procreate. That anxiety trait of dwelling on the negative was then handed down to their kids and their kids’ kids, and eventually to lucky us.
Today we need to be aware that our primitive mind, unchecked, will skew to the negative, ’cause that’s how we’re wired. Our new job is to give our more evolved selves a chance to give the entire positive-as-well-as-negative reality fair and full appreciation.
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