Optimism

"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."
Helen Keller

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you see the glass as half empty or half full. Susan Jeffers has found that positive thinking is one of the most difficult concepts to get across to people. She found her students respond immediately with "Oh, that's not realistic"; although they can't explain why it's not realistic. She says there is an automatic assumption that negative ideas are realistic and positive ideas are unrealistic. But the truth is that reality is whatever you decide is real, whether it's good or bad.

Why would anyone want to be a pessimist? It doesn't make you happy. My mother likes to proclaim that so many bad things are going on, the world is just getting worse and worse. It doubt if that makes her inspired to improve it. She's just kind of given up on it, feeling that she, or anyone else can't make any positive difference in the world anyway.

If she was to shift her viewpoint, and proclaim that lots of exciting new things are happening and the world is getting better and better, then I'm willing to bet that she would be much more eager to be a part of those exciting new developments. She would be more motivated to come up with an exciting new development of her own to add to them.

You might say that being a pessimist is selfish. You, in effect, are keeping your talents to yourself. When you are optimistic, you are much more inclined to share your talents with others, and come up with something that benefits everyone.

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