The Bright Side Blueprint: Building a Positive Mind, One Thought at a Time

When Mrs. Porr entered through the sliding glass doors of the Kroger, she had no intention of going back to work. That is, her duties as a teacher had been deservedly suspended until the following Monday. Little did she know, however, that rounding the rear corner of the cereal aisle (isn’t it always the cereal aisle?), she would run into Edison and his mother.

Standing in front of the end cap offering discounted coffee pods and Easy Mac, Mrs. Porr was happy— if not a little annoyed— to chit-chat about the two weeks of 7th grade that had so far transpired. Ms. Walker had told Mrs. Porr (within earshot of the K-cups!) that Edison’s assessment of the school year so far was that it “sucked” and that the activities were childish. Taken aback and quickly reviewing a mental inventory of all the things she and her teaching team had done specifically to combat the tweens’s potential feelings of “suck”, Mrs. Porr addressed Edison with the same compassionate curiosity with which her teaching team carried themselves each and every school day. She challenged Edison (right there between the ground beef and sandwich meat, and in front of his very own mother) and his perceptions of those first few days, and reminded him of the handful of times she’d personally witnessed him with an undeniable smile on his face and he engaged with his friends at the starting line of 7th grade math. The look on his face afterward betrayed that he knew Mrs. Porr was right, and that somewhere between his experience and his report, wires had gotten crossed and the signal was hijacked. Ms. Walker left that Kroger conversation with Mrs. Porr grateful (for an actually decent first few weeks of 7th grade), skeptical (of her son’s subsequent school-day reports), and a little peeved (at her inability to remember what she’d meant to get before she ran into Edison’s math teacher at the discount end cap. Spoiler alert! It was a “Family Size” box of Honey Nut Cheerios.).

As a seventh-grade English teacher, I immediately recognized in Mrs. Porr’s story about Edison and the grocery store an epidemic that affects not only our students but adults as well. It’s sometimes so palpable that I can imagine it hanging in the air like a thin gaseous cloud, waiting to be inhaled so that it can begin to feed. That epidemic is one of negative thinking. And nowhere is it more present than in a middle school. Having taught tweens (for the record, I absolutely detest that word, despite its accuracy) for the past ten years, I’ve seen year after year how common it is for humans of that age to look at a perfectly acceptable experience with a glass-half-destroyed approach. More specifically, they fall into the all-too-adult trap of allowing one or two minor moments of dissatisfaction to whitewash an entire experience or event as having “sucked”.

We adults tend to engage in this mentally destructive practice, too. Have you ever been having a meal at a restaurant and the food was delightful, but the service subpar? Ever have a wonderful day with family and/or friends at an amusement park, but had to abide long lines in the heat? What about watching an entirely good-to-great movie, only to find the ending to be seemingly penned by the screenwriter’s three-year-old? Situations like these are common, and often mire our recollection with liver spots of negativity, forcing us to unfairly evaluate what we might never again experience. But I’m here to tell you that changing your outlook is a simple way to enhance your life.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes things just suck: people can disappoint, events can be a letdown, and situations can make you wish you’d just stayed home instead. However, by challenging yourself to find that silver lining (as trite as that directive is) in every disappointing situation you encounter, you begin to rewire your brain to tap into the bright side. This simple choice to switch your focus comes with zero downsides, but the benefits can be life-changing. 

It begins with one conscious effort, and no “but”s. Start recollecting what was good-to-great about a given experience, and then stop there: a single “but” can negate all of your positive thinking. Then, do it again. And again. Some might find it helpful to enlist a trusted friend with a good sense of humor as a sort of “positivity accountability ambassador” to help with reminders or playing devil’s advocate in trickier situations. 

I engage in this practice with my students, and they are learning, slowly but surely, to be more positive thinkers. And Edison? He showed up to week three that following Monday ready to dive back into the rest of 7th grade with a better outlook.

Dyren Billups-Adams

seventh grade language arts teacher at the Columbus Gifted Academy in Columbus Ohio. 

Email: dyrenadams@gmail.com