The Problem I Have With "ALATBSOL"

ALATBSOL being an abbreviation of "always look at the bright side of life". The meaning on its own is rather problematic in itself but even more so is the way people tend to use this phrase. Now hold on, I'm not saying we should all focus on the dark side of life. It's a gray area matter and here I hope to pinpoint where in the spectrum my position is with the best accuracy that I can muster.

Life... well, a lot happens, a lot has happened and a lot is happening as we speak. These can range anywhere between the fears, phobias and taboos of every fictional demon to goodness that can overshadow the best of saints. What is good and what is bad tends to be subjective to many people but that is a completely different conversation. In any case, the bad things that happen can make oneself feel unsafe, insecure or shame towards oneself, one's community or even one's species and people naturally seek a way to cope with the facts they find shocking or distressing. There are many different ways for that to be done but here I'm going to focus on the subject phrase.

When someone tells another to look at the bright side of life, what is the full message? Obviously it means that life has its sorrows but it also has its joys, which is indesputably true. But there's more to it than that. What it also means is that resolution is not possible, that nothing can be done about the given troublesome facts in question and that one has to accept things for how they are. In the context of irreversible losses or mistakes, this is appropriate. At the beginning I said that the phrase in itself is problematic. It's actually a very specific part of the prase that makes it problematic; the word "always".

The question now becomes, what contexts are inappropriate to use the phrase and how might such contexts affect its underlying meaning? To conflicts or problems that really can be resolved or at least have a chance to. Challenges are critical to our own development as individuals because through experimentation we get to find our limits. To learn about our environment we have to interact with it after all. Some challenges about reality can really daunt and upset a person and it might make one moapy or cynical. Understandably this can upset the people around this person and they would probably end up using that prase. Under this context what the phrase means is this; you do not have the abilities nor the resourcefulness to surmount this challenge so just do yourself a favor; give up and look the other way. Take some time to let it sink in and I'll let you be the judge of that. In contrast, under the context of irreversible loss or futility it means that maybe what you lost wasn't all that important after all or more generally speaking, that this is just a natural process of learning how to thrive in this world you're living in. To use it under the context of one facing challenges is to disempower that person as well as insulting that person's potential and capabilities.

However, it is important that you know the source of one's cynicism. Is it indeed from a challenge one is pushing to surmount or is it out of arrogance? If it's the latter, anything you say's going to be a waste of time anyway.

If we're going to use that phrase, we better take care when to use it, especially for those pushing hard to find a solution to this challenge, they should be empowered to do their very best.