Take a walk through the cemetery and while you are there look at all the gravestones.
On each gravestone you will see engraved the name of the deceased person. In most cases underneath the name will be a birth date and date of death. For example: John Doe, 4 May 1957 - 21 October 2000.
Then there will be some short inscription. But let's look back at the dates. How do they denote the person's life?
See it? It goes birth date then "-" and then death date. Yes, every persons life is denoted by a minus sign!!
So next time some one says "don't be negative" you can smile and rest assured that you are living your life as it will be denoted on your grave stone.