Taste Life Blog

Slowly, I was losing my vision for the past five years. I did not realize how detrimental my vision was until the evening Tammy Laurent drove me to a NSA meeting, through dark, wooded, curvy roads and she could read the street signs that were twenty or thirty feet away. I had gotten used to driving up to a street sign to read it, not exactly safe when you have cars behind you. I feared I had become one of those “old woman drivers.” On my worst days the cloudy vision, which I likened to lotion smeared on your glasses, could not be blinked away and to cope I would simply need to close my eyes and go to bed. Thanks to Dr. Bennett and my vitrectomys I can see better than ever!

Growing up my mom always made me aware of my extreme nearsightedness and cautioned me to marry a man with “good eyes.”  I did, but unfortunately both my kids inherited my nearsightedness.  My seeing was corrected with contacts and I took seeing for granted and never appreciated my eyesight. This applies to not only our eyes but everything in life. Lately, we have had many gray overcast days in Minneapolis. If it was always sunny we could not appreciate the sun. We appreciate our health after sickness. We appreciate friends and co-workers that value us after experiencing relationships that don’t.

Optimism is a positive, upbeat attitude that enables us to bounce back to the challenges in life. Martin Seligman, the father of learned optimism, defines optimism in terms of how we explain to ourselves the good and bad events using three dimensions: internal/ external, permanent/ temporary and pervasive/specific.

Good Events:  An optimist takes credit for good events (internal) and believes that the positive effects will last (permanent) and that other aspects of his/her life will be affected (pervasive).

Bad Events: An optimist blames outside circumstances (external) maintains that the effects will not last (temporary) and they are limited to this particular situation (specific).

Five Ways to Boost Your Optimism

1. Own and express your emotional reactions honestly so you can effectively deal with what’s bothering you. Begin with the words, “I feel” as no one can take your emotions away from you.
2. Tell yourself you are a solution-based optimist. Focus on solutions rather than weaknesses.
3. Examine your self- talk. Take out negative words like don’t, no and not out of your vocabulary. Those words stop positive moods and actions.
4. Create 15 minutes of positivity each day. Listen to music, (breakfast, work car ride to work) read a favorite positive blog, pray, or mediate.
5. Start a week long “news fast.”  Take the negative entertainment and news programming out of your life for one week and see how your mood is boosted.

Being optimistic involves a choice about how you see the world. It doesn’t mean denying that bad stuff happens. It doesn’t mean trying to control your world and situations that simply can’t be controlled. All that is required is to have being an optimist your goal and practicing it. The primary cause of unhappiness is not the situation but your thoughts about it.

Optimistic thinking enhances happiness. Remember that 50% of our happiness is governed by our genes, 10% by life circumstances and 40% by what we do and how we think.  So, cultivating and practicing optimism makes sense. Change your thoughts and change your life!  And, don’t forget to get dressed in optimism in the morning!

What do you do to cultivate your optimism?