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Previously I've written about the upside and downside to positive thinking. And while positivity and negativity might be polar opposites, combining optimism with action can lead to finding a balance between the extremes.
Positive thinking presents a conundrum in that it involves first finding a negative and thinking about the negative repeatedly and even in the context of working on convincing ourselves that it is not true doing so can reinforce the negative thought. Negative and positive thinking both contain and element of belief that our thoughts are the truth which is often more about ego than reality.
One way of finding a middle path is to practice being present in the moment rather than judging the past or focusing on predicting the future. And that can be a great path for calming the incessant chatter of our minds. But much as I find meditation incredibly useful, sitting around waiting for life to happen to us and then benignly accepting doesn't sound terribly appealing to me.
If optimism can be defined as a hope for and belief that life and the future can always be good if not better than it is how we can form goals and dreams. Action is how we can then pursue those goals and dreams.
You might believe to be snake oil salespersons those who push the idea that if you just wish hard enough for a pony one will appear in your front yard as if by magic. Yet you would probably admire the little girl who sets up a lemonade stand to raise money so she can save up to pay for riding lessons because she hopes that a pony is somehow in her future and she is putting her optimism into action.
The win in this scenario is not the pony but the action. Her dream might morph but she is working towards it and I believe that if she never sits in a saddle she's better off for having the dream and doing something about it.
Though you might not subscribe to the belief that reality can be shaped by the power of our minds, you can choose to take action. And without discounting the reality of depression and other health issues, we can choose our outlook; we can choose to believe that our lives can continue to improve and make it so.
How do you find a balance between optimism and pessimism? Even if your disposition does not naturally tend towards optimism, do you find taking action helpful?
Related Reading:
Julia Baird at Newsweek: Positively Downbeat
But surely there's a middle way between clueless cheerleaders and grumpy prophets. The Dalai Lama shows you can strive to be content and remain angry about injustice.
Russell Bishop at The Huffington Post: Could You Just Get Over Your Negativity About Positive Focus?
Far from denial or pretense, the consistent theme across these many articles over the past 18 months is one of taking charge and doing what you can to improve your life experience along with your life circumstances. To play off the editor quoted above, there seem to be many puerile comments from the "shoot from the lip" crowd distorting this kind of advice into some kind of namby pamby pabulum about just pretending that things are fine or that things will get better if you just sit around and hope.
Far from it. It takes great courage to face adversity, imagine a better outcome, and then get off your butt and do something about it.
Tim Byrd at Under An Outlaw Moon: Optimism, Action, and How To Be The Neighborhood Pulp Hero
Optimism and action.
That’s the sort of formula I’d like my son to imprint on, more than trite “believe in yourself” homilies or the sort of self restrictions people come up with (“This is how a man acts, a man never does that,” and whatnot). That’s the sort of formula I’d like myself to imprint on, fully, so that I can live it.
Megan Hustad at The Daily Beast: Why Are You So Damn Happy?
Finally I asked Ehrenreich if there might be times when willful, defiant optimism can be a force for good, even for social progress. I tossed out the name Elizabeth Cady Stanton and mumbled something about how the first generation of suffragists didn’t live to see the 19th Amendment. If they’d been pessimists, would they have devoted years of their lives to a seemingly hopeless and thankless cause? Ehrenreich paused for a split second—she collects her thoughts faster than most mortals—then defined what
