Plan a Number of Positives in Life to Counterbalance the Negative

Published April 29, 1988. The power of “negatives.”

Most people are aware that life has a variety of experiences to offer. Some are positive and good. Others are not. We all seem to experience an abundance of both.

During the past few years I have learned something from my own life and observations others have shared with me. It is the incredible power of negative experiences. I am amazed at the great impact they have on our lives and our thinking.  I am also amazed by the length of time we are able to recall such experiences.

Some time ago I counseled with a couple who had been married well over 30 years. When they arrived, the wife brought with her a notebook, her “journal” so to speak, in which she literally kept a record of all the bad things that happened to her and her husband during their married life. When I saw her notebook I thought to myself, “That is really something to pass on to posterity!”

I don’t know why we are so caught up with negative experiences, but we all seem to give the negatives much more attention than we do the positives. We seem to gravitate toward our dominant train of thought. If we constantly dwell on negative thoughts, it seems our behavior tends to follow in that direction. We learn the simple truth that we become what we think about.

A few years ago I heard a lecture by a nationally known psychologist. During his talk he mentioned the power of negative thoughts and behavior on our lives. He said that a negative thought or experience has as much as 15 times the impact of a positive one. While he offered no documentation of the specific ratio of 1 to 15, I have found his overall noted trend to be accurate: Negative experiences have far more impact and get more attention than do positive ones.

So, you may ask, what does all this have to do with marriage? Suppose you and your spouse have an enjoyable experience of some kind together. Later that same day you have a negative one. Which of the two will get the greater attention? In the majority of cases it will be the negative one. That will be the one we will tend to emphasize and remember.

This means if we do have some kind of negative experience in a relationship, and we all do, then to off-set it we will have to encounter several positive experiences, perhaps as many as 15, just to keep things in balance.

In a very practical sense, this means if you have some kind of unpleasant experience with a spouse or a child, you have to deliberately plan and work toward a series of positive experiences to keep the relationship intact. The irony of life is that the negative experiences just happen to come along, unplanned and unanticipated. We don’t have to seek out such experiences in life. They just occur.

But the positive experiences usually do not happen spontaneously. They have to be planned for and worked toward. But once we understand the power of negative thoughts and experiences, we will be more willing to counterbalance them with a series of planned positive experiences.

Remember, after a confrontation there must be an increase of love, lest the other esteem you to be an enemy (Doctrine & Covenants 121:43). After a negative experience with someone, plan some positive ones to keep the relationship functioning.