optimism

France, evening

I had lunch at 4.30 pm today (I guess my internal clock got confused due to the jet-lag) at the same place than yesterday with a chicken sandwich (a very good one). While eating I was reading a magazine and there was an interesting article about being optimist.

First, doing the relative test I found out that I am not as negative as I thought (meaning that probably out there, there are people who are even more negative and pessimistic than me...wow, poor them)...

Second, beside the things that I already know, such as that stress, depression, negativity decrease the capacity of your immune system to fight infections and diseases and so people who think negative have also higher tendency to get sick more often and die earlier (poor them/us twice, not only you live your life in a negative way, but you also have to read that probably you will die earlier than if you live your life in a more optimist way...suffer twice....), it was also written that depress/negative people attract more depress/negative people around them and that 50% of your being depress/negative depends on your parents (so it is inherited) and on the environment were you grow up. Basically, what it happens is that growing in an environment with people who always or often anyway think that tomorrow will not better than today and things will not be ok, transmits fear of the future and a general negative view of what it will happen tomorrow.

The positive point of the article was that we can learn to be more optimist. Now, I actually would like to see an experiment on seriously depressed people to see how willing they are to learn to be optimist if they don't believe in optimism in the first place. So, maybe we can learn or re-learn to be optimist if we are not really at the bottom of negativity and depression, otherwise I think it would be very hard.
In any way, apparently the first trick to became more optimist is to think about enjoying what we have now instead of projecting our expectations and desire in the future (I am a disaster in this, I actually live much more for the future than in the present). So "carpe diem". Which doesn't mean to not build things for the future, but to enjoy the present while planning the future.
Second trick is to build up a confidence than in one way or the other everything will be ok. And this is easier to say or to write than to do. I challenge any negative thinker to get to think from the hole of his negativity that "hey, everything will be ok, so don't be silly, stop worrying"...it doesn't work that well with me at least. When I am in my very negative mood, that's all what I see and I am concern about (mmmm I guess my thinking in a rather pessimistic way is already obvious from this post....).
Third trick watch funny movies that make you laugh, spend time with funny people, do things that you use to like.

Because I think I am mastering more and more the art of pessimism and negativity (but only for myself, I am really positive about other's people life and I always manage to cheer them up), I decided that every time I think of something in a negative way, I should try to find also a positive way to look at it and I should start to dance again in my apartment, since that normally cheers me up quickly.
This evening for example, I danced on some song of the last album of Madonna. And it worked! Let's see how it goes my learning process to the way of optimism....