Quote:
Originally Posted by DDuff  Absolutely! I'm wondering if any of you watched the Michael J. Fox special. It was fascinating to me because they performed a study to distinguish between Optimists and Pessimists and how they view the world. Michael and his wife are opposites much like my DH and I are. What I found amazing was that in order to overcome obstacles optimists and pessimists need completely different tools. With the group that tested as optimists, they needed reaffirming statements like everything will be fine, you'll do great. Pessimists needed more specific advice based on the reality of the situation. Here is what you need to do , this is the worst that can happen, here is how you prepare for it. When they swapped the groups and provided the opposite support, both groups failed miserably. To me it was a complete Ah Hah moment. When my son went in to get braces years ago, I provided support by giving him details of what they were going to do. What I remembered as the worst part and how long that would take...DH was completely frustated with me he said "Geez you're going to freak him out just tell him everything is going to be fine." The good and bad news is that whether or not your are an optimist is part genetic part conditioning. I'm hoping to pass on enough conditioning to overcome my genetic predisposition to be a pessimist.  |
All sorts of
's were going off in my head as I read that.
In undergraduate school, a psych. prof. gave us an exercise to keep imagining the worse thing that could happen in our daily situations. My life fell apart! I have one active imagination!! When I "dream", unbelievable blessings come out of noplace. When I consider the details of this or that option and how it could go wrong, I get stuck, stuck, stuck!
I've also noticed that, as a person who can put glitter on a poo and appreciate the sparkles, I can really wear thin on people who want to find the negative in everything. I've learned to control my enthusiasm in quite a few situations.
THe fact is, though, I keep moving closer to my joy and, I have to say, I just see the pessimists spinning in circles that keep them feeling like life is a sad road.
I'm not an advocate of denial or failure to face facts at all. I've finished extensive training in first response for large scale terrorism attacks, which is a pretty dark place to send your head! Still, even with that, I figure "OK, if that does happen, there are people like me who are trained to jump in and help out!"
I suppose one of the reasons why I love this PassPorter site is there are SO many people here who's baloons rarely land!
Great comments, and thanks for the validation.