Optimism-It's More Fun!
The best way to start an article about optimism is with a quote:
“What I see in the world is a lot of people who are happy and fulfilled, who have exciting lives. What I see from my work are people who’ve been given these wonderful opportunities. It just seems like everything is working out for them. They have so much going for them that it seems kind of foolish to be at all pessimistic or cynical about life. I’ve never seen a more optimistic generation. What a great time to be alive! “ ~ Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post
One of the reasons this article is titled Optimism-It's More Fun! is that I can't think of much better way to start an article about optimism than with a quote from one of the most famous optimists in the world today. Arianna Huffington has worked to foster a culture of optimism and happiness throughout her exceptionally popular blog, The Huffington Post . The Huffington Post has over 35 million regular readers and shows no signs of slowing down, as it's so popular with all types of people. Even more impressive, is that Huffington isn't just popular in the U.S., but also abroad in countries like France and Germany . It's amazing to think about all of the positive things she's done, from her inspiring speeches to her blog posts on happiness. Since she's so influential, it's a great way to start an article about optimism.
The second quote that comes to mind when I think of optimism is this one: "Have no fear of perfection-you'll never reach it." ~ Salvador Dali
I love this quote because I feel like it's a pretty accurate description of how life works (which is why I like the quote so much...), but not just in terms of being a pessimistic person, but also being an optimist as well. There are a lot of things that keep us from reaching perfection, so we have to be aware of them. We have to know that we can't feel like we have what it takes to reach perfection, because life is a process and not an endpoint. When you think about it like this, even the most optimistic person in the world can see themselves failing at times-but when you look at it as a long-term process, there will always be something for them to work on. Like I said before, it seems foolish to be pessimistic when we're still in our youth. We have so much time to improve on our flaws and learn from our failures to become better people. That's the beauty of life-it has the potential to be whatever we want, as long as we stay open minded and take action.
There are so many different types of optimism. I could say that I'm an optimist because I try to keep my thoughts positive, but sometimes when I'm working on something difficult, it's hard to stay positive. Being an optimist isn't easy sometimes. One of the different aspects of optimism is what we look at in a situation and how that affects our outlook. There are two different kinds of optimism: Situational and Epochal.
Situational Optimism is when we look at a particular situation, evaluate it, and then decide how to act to make the situation better. It's based on what we see happening in the present moment. For example, if you're driving and something happens, you can either be optimistic or pessimistic based on what you see happening right now. For example, "Hey dummy...watch where you're going next time," would be a pessimistic remark, while "I'm sorry I wasn't looking and accidentally bumped into you. I'll make sure to pay attention the next time," would be an optimistic remark. It's important to keep your situational optimism in check, because sometimes we don't take into account all of the other factors involved in the situation.
Epochal Optimism on the other hand is when we look at changes that occur over long periods of time and base our outlook on them. For example, what we see happening in the present moment is not the only change that's occurred within an epoch, but we also find ways to interpret the past and future as well. The biggest difference between Epochal and Situational is that we usually see a lot of changes happening over an extended period of time, so it's harder to evaluate them all on their own. Epochal Optimism is often more realistic and true than situational optimism though. For example, our childhood optimism provided us with many rewards throughout our lives (i.
Conclusion
The best thing about optimism is that you can learn to be an optimist. When I was younger, I used to be more pessimistic than I am today and it was because of things that went wrong in my life. The more things that went wrong the more pessimistic I became. It's not something you can just wake up one day and decide not to be pessimistic about anymore, though. It's a process, and when you look at life as a long-term process, being optimistic about the future isn't hard at all.
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Optimism-It's More Fun!