Finding the balance

[MaidenMinx]

I was just watching Oprah (yeah I know) and something she said got me thinking. She said 'when someone shows you their true self believe them'. She meant this in the negative as a self preservation thought. (her show was about women that discovered they had been deceived by their husbands). It got me thinking. I've been personally trying to find and focus on the good in people and practising believing the best of people. This has been an important development for me because I'm a natural pessimist.

So my question for people, how do you find your balance between optimism and pessimism? Are you naturally optimistic and do you find yourself often burnt? Are you a pessimist and do you find yourself missing out? If you consider yourself a realist, are you really a pessimist trying to put of positive spin on it?

[KelE]

I'm and optimist and a pessimist. Sometimes I can't make up my mind. I think i'm pessimistic right now, but I go through phazes. Right now, I'm definitely a pessimist. I try to fight it though.

[Archie]

To put it simply, i was an optimist and i got burnt, real bad.
So i`m a pessimist. I doubt other people, i`m mostly self centered, closed person. To win my trust you have to go through unreasonable heights to reach me. And that is the reason why i feel so desolate, lonely, empty. I have a few people that i can be open with, but even then, i tend to keep to myself. I`m scared of losing them, they are my only attachment to sanity. I`m holding onto them by a thread, if that thread is cut by my stupidy, of my saying something wrong, then this body will just become a vessel of sadness. I know this, otherwise i wouldn`t be able to write it up, but i can`t fix myself, i`m not a copper statue that can be mended. For me, there is no equilibrium.

I got some problems mate! ^^

[qwertz]

Its a bit hard to be optimistic when life gives you a raw deal. Ive tried it, it doesnt work. So im 100% pessimist.

[MaidenMinx]

Wow! I don't know why I am surprised by the pessimism. One question for the pessimists, are you happy?

I spent a lot of my life feeling like I was carrying a black ball of anger inside me. No matter how happy I was this anger felt like it was just under the surface. This constant anger lead me into depression and anxiety. After scaring the crap out of myself with my anger I decided to go back into counselling. The first thing I told my counsellor was that I am very self analytical and due to that have managed to dazzle my previous counsellors with apparent bursts of insight without actually getting anywhere. He was the first counsellor to really help me. He taught me that I felt so crap about everything because I expected everything to be crap. He taught me it's all a matter of perspective. I learnt about expectations and how they set us up for disappointment. He actually saved my relationship with my fiance.

[MaidenMinx]

Wow! I don't know why I am surprised by the pessimism. One question for the pessimists, are you happy?

I spent a lot of my life feeling like I was carrying a black ball of anger inside me. No matter how happy I was this anger felt like it was just under the surface. This constant anger lead me into depression and anxiety. After scaring the crap out of myself with my anger I decided to go back into counselling. The first thing I told my counsellor was that I am very self analytical and due to that have managed to dazzle my previous counsellors with apparent bursts of insight without actually getting anywhere. He was the first counsellor to really help me. He taught me that I felt so crap about everything because I expected everything to be crap. He taught me it's all a matter of perspective. I learnt about expectations and how they set us up for disappointment. He actually saved my relationship with my fiance.

[doppelgaenger]

I definitely don't agree with Leibniz.

[bulrush]

So my question for people, how do you find your balance between optimism and pessimism?

When I was younger, I was more of a pessimist. Then I dealt with all my emotional baggage, now I'd say I'm well-balanced. I can see the good (and bad) in people. That is, I can accurately tell if the good in a person outweighs the bad. And that means I'm getting better at picking dates.

I also take responsibility for my actions. I chose to be in a bad marriage because I thought I alone could make things better. When I admitted I was wrong, I chose to get a divorce and start my life over. And that decision made me happy. I learned to identify when I was in control, and where I wasn't in control, I didn't let things bother me.

[abn25]

One thing is true about pessimists and that is their undying refusal to expect good things to happen, which in turn often causes a series of other unpleasant events. Domino effect, law of atrraction or whatever but it does ring true in many ways. I tend to be a realist but we all have bad days and its easy to get sucked into negativity if thats all you have around at that moment. The thing is to notice it in yourself and try to iimagine a better outcome.

[bulrush]

Yep. So while I prepare for bad things that might REASONABLY happen (like the power might go off for a bit, like 2 days ago), I try to focus on the good things happening around me. For example, work is getting busier for me. That means our business is more solid. And the day goes by faster for me.

I don't expect the world to end, but the US does go through recessions every few years, so I prepare for that.