If you expect something to turn out badly, it probably will. Pessimism is seldom disappointed. But the same principle also works in reverse. If you expect good things to happen, they usually do! There seems to be a natural cause-and-effect relationship between optimism and success.
Optimism and pessimism are both powerful forces, and each of us must choose wich we want to shape our outlook and our expectations. There is enough good and bad in everyone's life-ample sorrow and happiness, sufficient joy and pain-to find a rational basis for either optimism or pessimism. We can choose to laugh or cry, bless or curse. It's our decision: From which perspective do we want to view life? Will we look up in hope or sown in despair?
I believe in the upward look. I choose to highlight the positive and slip right over the negative. I am an optimist by choice as much as by nature. Sure, I know that sorrow exists. I am in my 70s now, and I've lived through more than one crisis. But when all is said and done, I find that the good in life far outweights the bad.
An optimistic attitude is not a luxury; It's a necessity. the way you look at life will determine how you feel, how you perform, and how well you will get along with other people. Conversely, negagive thoughts, attitudes, and expectataions feed on themselves;they become a self-fufilling prophecy, Pessimism createds a dismal place where no one wants to love.
Years ago, I drove into a service station to get some gas. It was a beautiful day, and I was feeling great. As I walked into the station to pay for the gas, the atteddant said to me, "How do you feel?" That seemed like an odd question, but I felt fine and told him so. "You don't look well, "he replied, This took me completely by sruprise. A liitle less confidently, I told him that I had never felt better . Without hesitation, he continued to tell me how bad I looked and that my skin appeared yellow.
By the time I left the service station, I was feeling a little uneasy. About a block away. I pulled over to the side of the road to look at my face in the mirror. How did I feel? Was I jaundiced? Was everything all right? By the time I got home. I was beginning to feel a little queasy. Did I have a bad liver? Had i picked up some disease?
The next time I went into that gas station, feeling fine again, I figued out what has hppened. The place has recently been painted a bright, bilious yellow, and the light reflecting off the walls made everyone inside look as though they had hepatitis! I wondered how many other folks has reacted the way I did. I has let a short conversation with a total stranger change my attitude for and entire day. He told me I looked sick, and before long, I was actually feeling sick. That single nagtive observation had a profound effect on the way I felt and acted.
The only thing more powerful than negativism is a positive affirmation, a word of optimism and hope. One of the things I am most thankful for is the fact that I have grown up in a nation with a grand tradition of optimism. When a whole culture adopts an upward look, incredible things can be accomplished. When the word is seen as hopeful, positive place, people are empowered to attempt and to ahieve.
Optimism doesn't need to be native. We can be an optimist and still recognize that problems still exist and that some of them are not dealt with easily. But what a difference optimism makes in the attitudeof the problem solver! Optimism diverts our attentioni away from negativism and channels it into opsitive, constructive thinking. When you are optimist, you are more concerned with problem-solving than with useless carping about issues. In fact, without optimism, issues as big and ongoing as poverty have on hope of solution. It takes a dreamer-someone with hopelessly optimistic ideas, great persistence, and unlimited confidence-to tackle a problem that big. It's our choice.