Optimism … without it, all the other stuff doesn’t do a whole lot of good. Oscar Wilde wrote, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Where’s your focus? Glass half empty, or glass half full? Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Journalist Larry Miller wrote recently, “A study in the Netherlands that covered a nine year period and included nine hundred men and women, found that pessimists not only died sooner of all types of diseases, they also suffered higher rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s.”
He goes on to write; “When we’re so preoccupied and ruminating on the things we perceive as bad in our lives and not feeling good, we don’t have time to see the good side of things and how they can help us feel better. Like Eeyore, in Winnie The Pooh, everything can look bleak if we focus on the downside.”
Life is going to deal you a bad hand from time to time – it’s just a fact. But how you choose to react; how you choose to hold those events is crucial. The old song “Keep On The Sunny Side,” makes a lot of sense. It takes practice to stay positive – but it takes practice to stay negative too. And that just might kill you.
Daily Life Journey 