All You Need Is Positivity...

Wow, did I really just quote the Spice Girls in a blog title?  That's a bit...scary.  But actually the Spicies were right - all you need IS positivity...well, I guess you need love too, but that's quoting the Beatles and would totally ruin my analogy-thing so we won't go there.  My blog, my rules...  :p

I've been thinking a lot about positivity over the past few months.  I try hard not to be negative about things in my day-to-day existence - I think it stems from having depression as a teenager and never wanting to go back to that horrible spiral - but there are times when I find myself channelling the negative energy instead of the positive, whether that's internalised ("oh my god, I hate my nose/boobs/whatever!") or externalised ("more war/death/tragedy in the world - the news is so terrible!!")  I know I'm not the only one who has days like this; it seems to be inbuilt into the human species to be almost entirely negative, critical and downbeat about things.  Or maybe that's just us Brits, where our pessimism is as synonymous with our fair island as our rain...Either way, there are times when I get heartily sick of the rest of the world, both in cyberspace and in Real Life, for its constant Bad Attitude towards both things and people.  My granny always used to say if you can't say anything nice to people then don't say anything at all; in this, as in so many other ways, my grandmother has proved to be a Wise Woman.  It's why I can't understand the mentality of people who (to use an example drawn from recent RL) would go onto the blog of the former Nightwish singer and read it, only to go onto the Nightwish forum and then moan about how said blog is "childish", "trivial" and "pointless".  If it's that bad, in your humble opinion, then why read it?!!  No one's holding a gun to your head and saying "you must read this every single day or else!"; if it isn't your particular cup of tea, just ignore it.  And stop carping about it and trying to bring others down!

The thread for this recent focus on positivity, however, stems from the reaction to the Paralympic Games in London this summer.  The Olympics, after traditional pessimistic British moaning, proved to be an utterly rip-roaring success but it was the perhaps somewhat surprising response of the country - and the rest of the world - to the Paralympics which really struck a chord with me.  Sydney in 2000 was probably the first time the Paras got given the same attention as the Olympic Games, but it was the London Games which really set the Paralympic movement alight and I for one could not be happier about it.  So many of the athletes commented on the positive way the Games were received by the British public, who roared on athletes from all over the world at a variety of events; so many of them also commented on the positive way people in Britain view disability in general which, given the current focus of our Government on welfare reform and the disability living allowance in particular, seemed particularly pertinent at the time. But the one thing I really loved about the Paras, apart from the utterly astonishing sport we got to see, was the way the public responded.  If an athlete did well they were lauded as the phenomenal sportspeople they were, with no patronising comments along the lines of "well, s/he did so well, considering s/he has no legs/arms/whatever".  And if an athlete performed "under par" they were subjected to the same scrutiny Wayne Rooney would receive after a particularly bad game for Manchester United.  There was no allowance made for the athletes disability; when Oscar Pistorius made a rather uncharacteristic outburst after being beaten in the 200m final, he was treated by both the press and the public as any other sportsperson would be treated - with surprise, disappointment and, in some cases, downright fury.  

The 2012 Paralympic Games provided some of the most inspirational moments I have ever seen.  It also allowed us to celebrate diversity and difference while realising that, actually, there aren't that many differences between us after all.  And what really inspired and moved me - what still does move me - is the hugely uplifting positive attitude shown by both competitors,public and journalists alike.  Channel 4 cleared their schedules for the coverage of the Games after two days; if you'd told me that in the run-up to the 2012 Games, I'd have laughed in your face.  But everyone was so overwhelmingly positive it became all but impossible to not become emotional about the Paras; to not cheer for an athlete from some far-flung land because they were providing us with some of the most amazing sport this country has ever seen.  It was absolutely, jaw-droppingly positive and I don't think Britain has ever experienced anything like it.

The last word on this has to go to one of my personal heroes, Oscar Pistorius.  Now I know there are people who will say "any old excuse - she fancies him rotten!" which is true, but besides fancying him rotten I have a huge amount of respect not just for him as an athlete but as a person, and a massive part of that is the way he was raised.  His parents never made "allowances" for his disability; he was never "coddled" or singled out and told "you can't do that because of your disability", and it was the likes of Oscar and the other hugely-talented sportsmen and -women at the London 2012 Paralympic Games who stood up and told the world "yes you can."  

Whenever I have days where I doubt myself or grow tired of the negativity I think about Oscar, or Johnnie Peacock, or David Weir and Hannah Cockcroft, and I suddenly realise that, actually, there is an awful lot of positive energy out there after all...