Enjoy Your Life: Change Your Point of View

“Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one sees the stars.”- Fred­er­ick Lang­bridge, a Clus­ter of Quiet Thoughts

If you’ve placed sec­ond in a writ­ing con­test, will you jump for joy and push for bet­ter results the next time or will you be dis­cour­aged and find an excuse not to join again?

Its same prin­ci­ple when comes to life, you are always filled with choices. You may opt to have a pessimist’s view and live a self-defeated life, or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and take a chal­leng­ing and ful­fill­ing life.

So why you need to nur­ture an optimist’s point of view? And why you need to do it now?

Well, opti­mism has been linked to pos­i­tive mood and good morale; to aca­d­e­mic, ath­letic, mil­i­tary, occu­pa­tional and polit­i­cal suc­cess; to pop­u­lar­ity; to good health and even to long life and free­dom from trauma.

On the other hand, the rates of depres­sion and pes­simism have never been higher nowa­days, which affects middle-aged adults the same way it hits younger peo­ple. Accord­ing to the study, the mean age of onset has gone from 30 to 15, and it is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s dis­or­der but also a teen-ager’s dis­or­der as well.

In regard­ing to how opti­mists are in action, researches have back up why it really impor­tant to be an optimist:

Opti­mists Expect the Best

The defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of pes­simists is that they tend to believe bad events, which will last a long time and under­mine every­thing they do, in the other words, what­ever hap­pens, they will think that are their own fault.

How­ever, for the opti­mists, the truth is they are con­fronted with the same hard knocks of this world. The dif­fers is that the way they explain their mis­for­tune is — it’s the oppo­site way. They tend to believe defeat is just a tem­po­rary set­back, it won’t last long and it will gone soon in which its causes are con­fined to the one case.

Opti­mists tend to focus on and plan for the ‘prob­lem’ at hand. They use ‘pos­i­tive rein­ter­pre­ta­tion.’ In other words, they most likely rein­ter­pret a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence in a way that helps them learn and grow, such peo­ple are unfazed by bad sit­u­a­tion, they per­ceive it is a chal­lenge and try harder.

They won’t say things like — “things will never get bet­ter,” or “If I failed once, it will hap­pen again” or “If I expe­ri­ence mis­for­tune in one part of my life, then it will hap­pen in my whole life.”

Pos­i­tive expectan­cies of opti­mists also pre­dict bet­ter reac­tions dur­ing tran­si­tions to new envi­ron­ments, sud­den tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will stand up and they see oppor­tu­ni­ties instead of obstacles.

Peo­ple Respond Pos­i­tively to Optimists

Opti­mists are proac­tive and less depen­dent on oth­ers for their hap­pi­ness. They find no need to con­trol or manip­u­late peo­ple. They usu­ally draw peo­ple towards them. Their opti­mistic view of the world can be con­ta­gious and influ­ence those they are with.

Opti­mism seems a socially desir­able trait in all com­mu­ni­ties. Those who share opti­mism are gen­er­ally accepted while those who spread gloom, panic and hys­te­ria are treated unfavorably.

In life, these peo­ple often win elec­tions; get voted most con­ge­nial and sought for advice.

When the Going Gets Tough, Opti­mists Get Tougher.

Opti­mists typ­i­cally main­tain higher lev­els of sub­jec­tive well-being dur­ing times of stress than do peo­ple who are less opti­mistic. In con­trast, pes­simists are likely to react to stress­ful events by deny­ing that they exist or by avoid­ing deal­ing with prob­lems. Pes­simists are more likely to quit try­ing when dif­fi­cul­ties arise.

They per­se­vere and they just don’t give up eas­ily, they are also known for their patience, inch­ing their way a step closer to that goal or elu­sive dream.

Opti­mists are Health­ier and Live Longer

Med­ical research has jus­ti­fied that sim­ple plea­sures and a pos­i­tive out­look can cause a mea­sur­able increase in the body’s abil­ity to fight disease.

Optimist’s health is unusu­ally good. They age well, much freer than most peo­ple from the usual phys­i­cal ills of mid­dle age, and they get to out­live those prone to neg­a­tive thoughts.

So why not be an opti­mist today? And think pos­i­tively towards a more ful­filled life. Why not look for­ward to suc­cess in all your endeav­ors? Why not be resilient? And why not inspire oth­ers to remove their dark-colored glasses and see life in the bright side?

Now is the time to carry your­self out of the mud and improve your chances of get­ting back on the right track.