The idea of having someone hold a sizable part of your happiness in their hands is downright terrifying. People are unpredictable, no matter how kind they might seem. At the end of the day, their emotional interests come first when things really count.
People might hear this and say "well, you should be happy on your own anyways so you aren't needy when in a relationship!! You have to work on yourself first!"
Ok, that's fine. But then why would you even seek out a relationship? Why would you deal with the work required to manage one? Don't you have to "need" a relationship to some degree to seek it out and work on keeping it together? Otherwise, if you are perfectly happy being alone, why even bother with the potential headache of a relationship?
Remember that stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.- Andrew J. Bernstein
You can't "force" yourself to think differently about something if the more negative interpretation keeps overpowering the positive. We ultimately have no idea where thoughts even come from or where consciousness comes from or why some people are much more prone to anxiety and negative thinking than others. How can you "control" something when you don't know its source or how it's even created?
I am not saying throw your hands in the air and give up and think it's all hopeless. I am saying that's it's not as simple as trying to control how you view a situation and what your thoughts are. The solution is probably a lot more difficult and must be more thorough. It probably involves going through some kind of powerful experience that gives you a perspective shift or genuinely elicits an emotional response.
For instance, somewhat recently, I was feeling especially down and like absolute shit. Nothing was working. Music wasn't helping. My hobbies weren't helping. Talking to friends wasn't helping. But you know what randomly and unexpectedly raised my mood? An old lady was stuck in an intersection because there was no ramp installed to help her move her heavy cart. When she saw me walking by, she called to me and asked me to help her lift her cart. I ran over and helped her and almost immediately afterwards, I was feeling noticeably better. When nothing had broken through the sadness, this small act broke through. Why? I really have no idea. But notice how trying to "think differently" or "controlling thoughts" was doing absolutely nothing. Something completely unexpected like helping an old lady completely broke through the terrible mood when nothing else was working. Why did that happen?
Perhaps we should consider more non-orthodox solutions to people feeling like crap. Maybe we can try to convince a sad person to go out and find someone to help and see if that helps raise their mood. Or we can prescribe some other action-based approach that is more relevant for that particular person. The overall point here is that you can't simply "think differently" about something most of the time.
I wish I could remember the exact quote and who said it but today I was reminded of a podcast I had heard in the past and the guest was speaking about her rough past and how she got through it. She made a point that stuck with me.
The gist of her explanation was that bad stuff happens to people all the time and to deal with it, they create an explanation for it and think it all "happened for a reason." I am sure we have all heard people say this and there is nothing wrong with it I think because it's a coping mechanism and I don't see the harm in it. The podcast guest went on and said that stuff does NOT happen to us "for a reason." Shit just happens and we search for reasons and meaning after the fact to try to make sense of the randomness and indifference of the universe.
I don't know if it's pessimistic to truly accept the fact that reality and bad luck are mostly random and there is no rhyme or reason behind it. In a sense, thinking like this allows you to perhaps live life in a more carefree and uncaged way. But at the same time, this could put you at risk of thinking everything is meaningless and nothing really matters. That kind of a perspective can rob life of its joys and that's no fun either.
I don't know where I stand on this issue. It's something I have thought about over time but have never come upon a clear answer for myself. Maybe that's fine. Clear answers are rare.