A couple weeks ago, I was struck by a headline I read in the Calgary Herald. It simply said this: “Positive blog focuses on life’s simple pleasures.”
The article went on to tell the story of Neil Pasricha, who was depressed by reading constant bad news daily, the breakup of his own marriage, and one of his closest friends’ suicide. Neil decided to try to focus on the positive, and so he came up with 1000 simple, free awesome things, posting one each day on a blog, called www.1000awesomethings.com. Little did he realize that his blog would strike a nerve and attract 40,000 people daily, and a major book deal. His book, The Book Of Awesome, was released in mid-April of this year.
“I turned the worst year of my life into my best year by focusing on the positive… I think it is a sign that people want optimism to come back”, Pasricha told Reuters in a phone interview.
I love that statement by Pasricha. It contains a wealth of wisdom, and expresses three Guideposts we can all live our lives by daily.
The first Guidepost is CONTROL - You Are In Control. Pasricha said that, “I turned the worst year of my life into my best year…” This is not about being a control freak, or about allowing our potential “O.C.D. Tendencies“ (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) to drive us to a place of losing our sanity, but about recognizing that ultimately, we are in control of our world and especially our internal environment. Though he was in the midst of the worst year of his life, internally and externally, he took CONTROL and transformed it into his best year, both internally, and eventually, externally. This is one of the most liberating and empowering principles to internalize, because it removes us from being a victim of circumstance and happenstance, and puts us firmly in the drivers’ seat! We are in CONTROL!
The second Guidepost we can live our lives by is CHOICE - You Exercise Control By Making A Choice. Pasricha said that, “I turned the worst year of my life into my best year by focusing on the positive…" The pathway given us for exercising CONTROL is simply that we need to exercise the power of CHOICE. Dr Wayne Dyer said it so simply, when he said that, “Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.” Many people will be shocked to come to the end of their lives and realize that they were given the same 24 hours in each day as Abraham Lincoln, the same 7 days a week as Gandhi, the same 52 weeks a year as Helen Keller, and the same 12 months a year as Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet did we make the same choices they made, with the same allotments of time? Some exercised their CONTROL and made positive, healthy, and consistent CHOICES and produced results which still beneficially impact our world today. Some do not. Will you exercise the CONTROL you have already been given by making positive, healthy, and consistent CHOICES?
The final Guidepost we can live our lives by, which we see here, is COMEBACK - Optimism Makes A Comeback When We Exercise The Right Choices! Pasricha said that, “I think it is a sign that people want optimism to come back”. See, people want Optimism in their lives and in their world. People are longing for and craving the positive, the hopeful, the sunny, promising and bright.
Optimism is defined as the tendency to believe or expect or hope that things will turn out well. It is the attitude of someone who feels positive or confident. And it makes a COMEBACK in our lives when we exercise the CONTROL we have been given and make positive and healthy and consistent CHOICES. It reminds me of the quote from Viktor Frankl, who spent years in a Nazi death camp, but also said this: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” We all want freedom and growth! It is easy to answer negative stimulus with negative response; the challenge is in responding to negative with positive. This is Optimism. When we respond with Optimism, we allow Optimism to make a COMEBACK in our lives and in those around us. Here are a few Principles About Optimism…
- Optimism Is Always About What You Choose To Focus On - Life is full of good and bad, healthy and unhealthy, rich and poor, ying and yang. There will always be good and bad, healthy and unhealthy, positive and negative, north and south, sunshine and rain, ying and yang. It is what it is. So why focus on the negative? Optimism is about us taking our power of choice and using it to focus on what will empower us: the positive. This does not mean denying the negative, but maximizing the positive!
- Optimism Doesn’t Always Change The Result, But It Always Changes Our Experience - There is not necessarily a power in Optimism itself to change the circumstance or the result…but being Optimistic in the midst of life and difficulties certainly changes our experience in the midst of it! Years ago, I realized that if I was going to go through pain anyway, often through no action on my part, then perhaps I should so through it with a positive, vibrant perspective, this improving my experience.
- Optimism Is The Key To Progress & Advancement - Without Optimism, progress is almost non-existent. Martin Luther King Jr. said to, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step. ” Optimistic people have the capacity to do this. Negative people do not.
- Optimism Is A Seed That Blossoms Into Greater Opportunity, Healthier Relationships, and Deeper Abundance - Nietzsche said that, “Everyone thinks that the principal thing to the tree if the fruit, but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.” Optimism is the seed, life is the fruit. Here is the reality: Optimism is attractive. We like to be around people who are bright, sunny and generally joyful. It is not a lot of work to be around people like that! On the other hand, pessimism is relationally unattractive! Though the results we seek aren’t always caused when we are Optimistic, there is no doubt that Optimism in and of itself often attracts Greater Opportunity, Healthier Relationships, and Deeper Abundance.
- Optimism Is Nature’s Stress Relief Valve - There can be no doubt that where the mind goes, the man follows. Hans Seyle, which was a pioneer in the understanding of human stress, was asked the following question: “What is the most stressful condition a person can face?” His unexpected response: “Not having something to believe in.” When we lack something to believe in, it creates a deficit of hope within us. This deficit of hope leads to an abundance of stress. Here is a simple equation for managing through life…
> Abundance Of Hope = Deficit Of Stress
> Deficit Of Hope = Abundance Of Stress
- Optimism Takes Work, Effort and Humour - Lastly, it takes hard work, effort, and humour to maintain an Optimistic and sunny disposition, but it is well worth it! It takes intentionality, focus, and the ability to laugh at yourself and life around you. Make Gratitude Lists and Gratitude Journals. Document the life-giving and the inspiring. Create a list of life’s simple pleasures and blessings. Cultivate the attitude of gratitude.
Surround yourself with positive people and positive messages. These are crucial keys in developing consistent Optimism.
I challenge you to give Optimism a chance in you again! Embrace the Comeback of Optimism! The Upanishads, which are ancient Hindu Scriptures, simply say this: “Out of abundance He took abundance and still abundance remained.” The universe is still expanding, and so are you! Abundance is in you and flows through you and is all around you! There many many reasons to be optimistic…and the best is that there still abundance in you! Optimism is a simple perspective that life is good, and it leads to a good life! Embrace this perspective, and life will be good! And your experience of life will be even better!
