Optimism
Optimism…
I was talking with my brother the other day and he told me I was an optimist… that I see life as a glass half full rather than a glass half empty.
I was rather taken aback and I think I may have started to sputter. I see myself as a pragmatist… and sometimes as a pessimist… not an optimist. I am certainly no Pollyanna. However, as he is my brother and not the first person to comment on my optimism, I have given it some thought.
I don’t believe I am an optimist. I hope for the best, but I don’t expect it. I am a bit of a salesman when the idea takes me, but I don’t reframe things so they are always positive. I just don’t choose to focus so much on what went wrong as I do on what I can do now that it has.
If I focused on what doesn’t work, I think I would have a tough time getting out of bed each morning. I have lived with a nasty remitting and relapsing course of fibromyalgia combined with chronic fatigue syndrome for at least 40 years: the last 14, in relapse. I get up nearly every morning feeling like I have a bad flu. Some days it’s worse. I hurt all of the time. Sometimes it seems unbearable. And yet, each day I get up and make of it what I can. I survive because I focus on what is possible each day.
My life hasn’t been easy. If something could go wrong, it did. So that too is part of my world view. I don’t expect anything to be easy. I expect difficulties. I even plan for those I can predict. I guess I see life as a continuing set of logistical challenges. Like a good scout, I am always prepared… not just for all contingencies but for the unexpected as well.
I am seldom so invested in a plan that I am not willing or able to change it. The best things in my life have come from taking advantage of the unexpected opportunities created by life’s mishaps… even my children.
I would say that this has worked out very well for someone with my illness, but I expect that my illness has had a great deal to do with teaching me flexibility. My illness creates the unexpected each day. The symptom most difficult to endure is the total unreliability of my condition… of my life. Yet, that is what makes each day a process of discovery.
I have always been a curious person. I want to know what will happen when I encounter the unexpected. My inability to plan my life has kept me open to opportunity. If you can stay focused on the possibilities, the detours are what make life interesting.
Of course, it helps that I have always been more interested in what happens when you encounter the unexpected than in being able to reproduce the results. Is that a result of my illness or just some personality quirk? I don’t know. But it sure cuts down on frustration.
I guess I don’t see the glass as either half empty or half full… I just wonder what is in the glass … and what I can make with it. In today’s world I suppose that might make me an optimist.
I was talking with my brother the other day and he told me I was an optimist… that I see life as a glass half full rather than a glass half empty.
I was rather taken aback and I think I may have started to sputter. I see myself as a pragmatist… and sometimes as a pessimist… not an optimist. I am certainly no Pollyanna. However, as he is my brother and not the first person to comment on my optimism, I have given it some thought.
I don’t believe I am an optimist. I hope for the best, but I don’t expect it. I am a bit of a salesman when the idea takes me, but I don’t reframe things so they are always positive. I just don’t choose to focus so much on what went wrong as I do on what I can do now that it has.
If I focused on what doesn’t work, I think I would have a tough time getting out of bed each morning. I have lived with a nasty remitting and relapsing course of fibromyalgia combined with chronic fatigue syndrome for at least 40 years: the last 14, in relapse. I get up nearly every morning feeling like I have a bad flu. Some days it’s worse. I hurt all of the time. Sometimes it seems unbearable. And yet, each day I get up and make of it what I can. I survive because I focus on what is possible each day.
My life hasn’t been easy. If something could go wrong, it did. So that too is part of my world view. I don’t expect anything to be easy. I expect difficulties. I even plan for those I can predict. I guess I see life as a continuing set of logistical challenges. Like a good scout, I am always prepared… not just for all contingencies but for the unexpected as well.
I am seldom so invested in a plan that I am not willing or able to change it. The best things in my life have come from taking advantage of the unexpected opportunities created by life’s mishaps… even my children.
I would say that this has worked out very well for someone with my illness, but I expect that my illness has had a great deal to do with teaching me flexibility. My illness creates the unexpected each day. The symptom most difficult to endure is the total unreliability of my condition… of my life. Yet, that is what makes each day a process of discovery.
I have always been a curious person. I want to know what will happen when I encounter the unexpected. My inability to plan my life has kept me open to opportunity. If you can stay focused on the possibilities, the detours are what make life interesting.
Of course, it helps that I have always been more interested in what happens when you encounter the unexpected than in being able to reproduce the results. Is that a result of my illness or just some personality quirk? I don’t know. But it sure cuts down on frustration.
I guess I don’t see the glass as either half empty or half full… I just wonder what is in the glass … and what I can make with it. In today’s world I suppose that might make me an optimist.
posted by Joanne Brayden at 8:43 AM
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