People say that being positive is contagious and in our culture we usually say “be optimistic and good things will happen.” When a person wakes up in the morning thinking that it’s going to be a beautiful day, the weather is refreshing, transportation is good, and the boss will praise his work, undoubtedly he’ll feel the positive energy running through his veins enabling him to make the best out of his day. The same can happen if you start your day with a smiling person who urges you to use the goodness in your day; this person could be a husband, a wife, a workmate, or a family relative.
This influence is not related to beautiful feelings only, but it also happens when you work or live with a pessimistic, shattered miserable person. He makes life a field of landmines targeting your emotions and feelings. Then you’ll feel miserable without knowing why, and you end up complaining and grumbling a lot. You’ll start to be miserable and hate yourself, cursing your luck that made you work in this place or exist into this world. These feelings and thoughts happen unconsciously in a person. They start small and they grow bigger and stronger until the person is devastated.
I’ve noticed in our society that people are afraid to show their happiness and good luck. For instance, when a person receives high grades, marries a good husband or wife, gets a good job, has good children or wealth and money, he or she would not want to talk about it. On the other hand, a miserable person who is unhappily married and works in a lousy job doesn’t mind sharing all his worries and problems.
It seems that our society has many negative and bad thoughts. People who experience happiness are afraid to share their feelings of joy because they worry about the evil eye or people’s envious feelings. And people with bad luck compare themselves with others as if everyone’s fate and destiny should be the same. This way of thinking, that is part of our culture, looks upon joy and good fortune as the exception, whereas these should be life’s essence.
Along with feelings of envy and jealousy, humanitarian feelings in our society are restricted to certain people and occasions. We don’t feel other’s pain and we don’t try to help each other financially as well as emotionally. Some people believe that they have the right to everything, and before everyone else. They are selfish and lack the sense of compassion towards others. It only feeds the negative feelings and perverted ideas that some people harbor. Selfishness and jealousy enhance feelings of negativity, such as being envious of others’ good fortune. How many creative people prefer not to show their talent because they are afraid of envy?
One day I watched Oprah’s talk show where she interviewed an American couple, country singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. I admired and liked how they showed their intimate feelings and love to each other as husband and wife. The wife wasn’t worried or afraid to express or talk about her feelings to her husband, and he too didn’t feel embarrassed to do the same.
We can compare this to many scenes we see in our society. Once a wife tries to hold her husband’s hand in public, people will give them dirty stares, invading their privacy and depriving them of their happy moments. And here I’m only talking about holding hands, how about other nicer things the married couples share in public?
I believe that by recognizing positive acts it would nourish our thoughts in a good way. Saudi men and women are no different than their foreign peers. The issue is related to mastering human emotional skills between people.
When we observe our society, we find that there is an urgent and perverse desire to encourage negative thoughts. We see this when we hear the negative stories that spread about marital relationships.
I wonder a lot about our cultural stereotypes that burden young men and women when they want to get married. It’s really frightening to know that they both get together filled with negative ideas against each other. This can cause many problems that neither of the two deserves to experience.
We must remember that we have to make people aware of the principle of contentment. Many people are never happy with what they have or satisfied with what Allah gave them in this world. We must understand that people go through good and bad times, and that no one ever gave us the right to deprive other people’s happiness.
