Greetings! Today, I would like to discuss with my readers the "revisionist mindset" from a mostly psychological perspective. First, we will cover what this is. Secondly, we will cover how it affects our everyday life whether positively or negatively, with examples.
So, what am I talking here is an occurrence in our brains that formulates how we will remember a situation, a span of time, or singular event. Revision finds its roots in the word revise which for the intents & purposes of this article means to rethink or re-evaluate. So here we go, let's take "Sally" who was let go from her cubicle job because of company wide budget cuts. Sally can take this news a couple ways.
Mindset A This company has always sucked! Management has never had my back! I'm glad I got fired!
(PS she wasn't fired but let go, big difference. That wording alone can change or revise Sally's entire mindset)
Mindset B Well, I was let go but it was a company wide thing and so were two other employees here. My overall time here was positive. Every ending creates a new beginning.
In our first mindset, Sally revises her history to fit the narrative most relevant to her recent loss of work in a negative manner - that the company had just completely screwed her & that there was subsequently nothing good about any of it. Definitely an unrealistic mindset - and reminiscent of the scorched earth theory where someone takes one bad thing in order to rationalize the whole thing being just a terrible experience. Rarely are things truly that bad!!
In our second mindset, Sally isn't really revising her history, she's just stating facts in a healthy manner. Yes, she was let go but she wasn't singled out like you might believe if you only listened to the first mindset. Overall her experience at this job was good and it is a stepping stone to a new opportunity.
Oftentimes if something that could be viewed as negative arises, it is viewed that way in its' entirety. Then it can taint our entire history. Sally could easily begin to recount all her negative life experiences and chalk it all up to "bad stuff always happens to me. "
Revisionists can paint the extreme negative or they can also paint things as far better than they actually are. Neither mindset is good because neither is true. Nothing is always great & nothing is always terrible Mindset two was factual and non- revisionist.
You may be wondering, well, why would someone revise their history to begin with? Revising occurs due to:
- Perceptions of what other people may think &
- What we actually think of ourselves.
Bottom line is, it is okay to know what others think about you, but with that comes responsibility over how you're going to internalize it. It is not okay to let their possible negative opinion of you re-write your history and destroy a positive sense of self. Bottom line is what other people think of you or a situation relative to you is actually none of your business. Just like what you really think of someone or something isn't their business either.
To conclude, you can allow situations & events to internalize negatively or positively. Being a positive person doesn't have to mean rainbows & butterflies either. You could just be a realist. =)
As always thanks for dropping by my blog. Would love to hear your point of view on this matter.