judging by appearance

In general, it's better to be positive than negative, but sometimes negativity can be refreshing, and sometimes positivity can be obnoxious and shallow. You know those people who are just very honest when everyone else is trying to be polite....I like that. 

The book of the Bible that is most like this is Ecclesiastes. It's like, everything is meaningless.....I've tried all these things to make me happy - to fulfil me - and nothing does. It's just refreshing to read a message like that in the Bible of all books. 

I was part of a Christian group for many years where joyfulness was obligatory. You were judged according to how joyful you were, among other things. Of course, no one can really know how joyful you are, so you were judged by how joyful you appeared to be. So, to avoid getting into trouble everyone was always trying to appear to be joyful. We justified it with the idea that that was what we were meant to do - that was God's will. We weren't being fake. We were denying ourselves as it teaches you to do in the Bible. We made ourselves appear to be joyful, whether we felt like it or not. 

The irony is that forced joy is the very definition of fake joy. Real joy and love and faith are always based on freedom of choice. Real faith doesn't come from a refusal to countenance any doubts whatsoever. Being positive is not about rigidly refusing to be negative about anything. Real repentance is not about eschewing any kind of struggle completely.