....Just that I thought optimism was about being a goody-goody who never complained and saw bright, beautiful things that others would not see even through electron microscopes... and being totally blind to big ugly things like" why does life keep dishing out this kind of stuff to me" and "bad day after bad day after bad day"... Some sort of corrupted, selective vision while looking at life... So I thought this was just another kind of fraudulent thinking... Fake happiness... I might even have tried it but it never worked, also because the pessimism was WAY too deeply ingrained...
Then I thought... Hey what I THOUGHT about optimism was all THAT ?.....Really ? Did I believe all THAT ?... Eeew !.......And just putting the thoughts that way showed where I was probably wrong....
I thought optimism was about hanging on till the "real thing" comes...
It is actually about HAVING the real thing right here right now... No waiting. No game-playing...
Sounds ok... Good copy, in fact. But it's STILL not easy to undo the thinking patterns of a lifetime... But just thinking of how much happier I could be if I stop thinking negative thoughts kinda helps... It is as simple as that.
Funny thing is, I used pessimism as a cushion. Defence mechanism. "Nothing can be worse than what I imagine if I imagine the worst". Correct. But does that really make anything any better ?.... Well if you genuinely believe that only horrible things happen to you all the time (like I did...) then you might get the perverted satisfaction of saying "Aha! Not quite upto what I thought.... you could not surprise me.. ". It is really SICK... But so are so many of our thought patterns... As long as they are vague thoughts in one's head, one never realises the absurdity. But put it into words, or THINK it out... and man...
Then I really believed that if I was too optimistic, Life would give me below-average stuff because I would be content anyway ( which should not be a problem if I am REALLY content... but hey, I thought it was about WAITING for better stuff and ACTING good...) So I would be cheated, right ? I could get better if I set my standards higher. Refuse to be pleased. I might be exaggerating. But something like this was probably in my head. Another damaging thought pattern.
Then there was the spooky thing about being grateful and counting blessings. I found that as soon as I start countin my good things, they start to disappear... Really ! Maybe it was just a phase. But it scared me for good. Like, it would be so much better to be grumpy than to start losing the blessings one by one simpy because I started being grateful or counting them ! I haven't unravelled this mystery yet... But I have long since started being grateful and moderately optimistic... At least this was one dumb pattern I FORGOT about !
All these silly thoughts crumble when you emphasise the "BEING" happy part... not the "acting" happy... or "pretending to be" happy... or even "keepin ur chin up so that Life will be impressed and reward you with REAL happiness sooner or later"...
That last one... I really seemed to have believed it for a long time.... No wonder Optimism seemed like a painful struggle ! It's really very simple. Just that we sometimes lose our capacity to see the simple things... That happens. But that's all that happens. Just THAT. The rest of the story is fictitious. The long row of dominoes is imaginary. There is no crisis. We can all go home now.
Then I thought... Hey what I THOUGHT about optimism was all THAT ?.....Really ? Did I believe all THAT ?... Eeew !.......And just putting the thoughts that way showed where I was probably wrong....
I thought optimism was about hanging on till the "real thing" comes...
It is actually about HAVING the real thing right here right now... No waiting. No game-playing...
Sounds ok... Good copy, in fact. But it's STILL not easy to undo the thinking patterns of a lifetime... But just thinking of how much happier I could be if I stop thinking negative thoughts kinda helps... It is as simple as that.
Funny thing is, I used pessimism as a cushion. Defence mechanism. "Nothing can be worse than what I imagine if I imagine the worst". Correct. But does that really make anything any better ?.... Well if you genuinely believe that only horrible things happen to you all the time (like I did...) then you might get the perverted satisfaction of saying "Aha! Not quite upto what I thought.... you could not surprise me.. ". It is really SICK... But so are so many of our thought patterns... As long as they are vague thoughts in one's head, one never realises the absurdity. But put it into words, or THINK it out... and man...
Then I really believed that if I was too optimistic, Life would give me below-average stuff because I would be content anyway ( which should not be a problem if I am REALLY content... but hey, I thought it was about WAITING for better stuff and ACTING good...) So I would be cheated, right ? I could get better if I set my standards higher. Refuse to be pleased. I might be exaggerating. But something like this was probably in my head. Another damaging thought pattern.
Then there was the spooky thing about being grateful and counting blessings. I found that as soon as I start countin my good things, they start to disappear... Really ! Maybe it was just a phase. But it scared me for good. Like, it would be so much better to be grumpy than to start losing the blessings one by one simpy because I started being grateful or counting them ! I haven't unravelled this mystery yet... But I have long since started being grateful and moderately optimistic... At least this was one dumb pattern I FORGOT about !
All these silly thoughts crumble when you emphasise the "BEING" happy part... not the "acting" happy... or "pretending to be" happy... or even "keepin ur chin up so that Life will be impressed and reward you with REAL happiness sooner or later"...
That last one... I really seemed to have believed it for a long time.... No wonder Optimism seemed like a painful struggle ! It's really very simple. Just that we sometimes lose our capacity to see the simple things... That happens. But that's all that happens. Just THAT. The rest of the story is fictitious. The long row of dominoes is imaginary. There is no crisis. We can all go home now.
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