The bad in the good

Have you ever faced any difficult decision in life? Did you use any method to make it easier to choose? One of my techniques is making a list of pros and cons, and I know there are many of you who also like to grab a pen and paper trying to clarify your mind. Understanding the whole picture seems less complicated once you have all the factors written down, one by one, clasified in front of you. Nevertheless, every method has positive and negative aspects. Is this system really useful?

The most enjoyable part of the listing process is thinking about advantages. We all love to focus on the favoring aspects of the situation; thus, here we have the first advantage of advantages: delight. There is another gratifying characteristic: every point in the pros block is a whisper of hope. The more advantages we have, the more confident we feel about the situation, right? We have no problems in finding even the tiniest benefit so we can enlarge the list. Lastly, I will admit that advantages are a source of courage to me, so I keep those pros in mind and repeat them to myself like a mantra when the situation gets harder in the future. As you can see, positivity goes beyond the listing process and reaches further stages after making the decision!

Nothing in life is so simple as black and white, neither are advantages, which contain disadvantages too. Have you ever thought about them? Sometimes I wonder if I am underestimating the real difficulties of the situation because I am focusing too much on the pros list. We should be careful when brainstorming for advantages; having a great number of them does not imply they are all strong reasons to consider. We must prioritize quality to quantity and that is not always easy, especially when we realise we have no good advantages to include in the list. Do not be confused by weak ideas. Also, situations change with time and that might affect some factors that were supposed to be positive before! Once again, it is necessary to think carefully about the endurance of the benefits through time. Good will not always be good.

After considering both sides of advantages, are they as valuable as they seem? Of course they are! We need to spend as much time as possible thinking on the pros list. It will give us strength, joy, determination and faith, which are essential sources of energy for any goal we set. This eagerness should come from inside of you as no external influences will give you enough confidence to carry on when life shows its claws. Besides, there is a cons block in every decision we make and we need to refute them with positivity! Even if disadvantages are numerous or rough, bad will not always be bad, either.

Exercise: Writing a constrast text considering pros and cons about the topic.