How to be an Optimist
March 14th, 2008
I tend to have a sunny disposition that frequently borders on maniacally happy, and I was recently asked the question of how I manage to stay so cheerful. The answer at the time (“Great job, good hobbies, comfortable in my life, happy where I’m going, etc etc”) was in retrospect a little trite, because it didn’t really go into any of the details that were really the meat behind it all.
As a self-described eternal optimist (Caveat: This is a dirty lie, but it’s a goal), I have to see the silver lining on pretty much every cloud, and this fundamentally is a factor of perception. If I decide to see the good things, I will, and vice versa. This perception is locked in an eternally self-perpetuating symbiotic relationship with my mood: If I’m unhappy I’ll see things in a bad light, which will make me unhappy and so on and so forth until I’m wearing black eyeliner, listening to Faith & The Muse and stapling my hand to my forehead. Alternatively, when I’m happy it causes a similar chain reaction until I’m wearing a Dirndl and singing in the Tyrolean Alps (Yes, there are pictures, and no, you can’t have them). In short, my mood is the lens through which I perceive the world. Sound familiar? Well, I can’t imagine I’m alone in this. Moving on…
This suggests that the secret to being an optimist is actually the same as keeping your mood up aka the secret to happiness, and that…. well, I’m hardly someone who’s made the effort to be an expert at a topic that so many people have tried to define. I do have quite a few books on happiness though, everything Buddhist philosophy to scientific articles about endorphins to small pamphlets handed to me by people declaring it to be my salvation, but that doesn’t make me an expert. If anything, these texts have taught me that the secret to happiness is religious in nature, and since I think that’s absolute rubbish I’m clearly not qualified to talk about it.
Thankfully, that’s not going to stop me.
The secret to happiness lies in self awareness and a proper approach to life, and in most cases this means proper management of the things you do and the way you look at things. That’s right, management. Happiness isn’t something you’re going to find outside of your own mind, it’s something you’re going to have to work for, and it is by no means easy. Think of it like a diet for the brain: Not only do you have to loose 100 pounds of unhappiness, you also have to change your way of life so that the weight stays off. And like diets, there are things that work and things that don’t, and while I don’t have an exhaustive list I do have some suggestions and guidelines.
A warning: it can get pretty saccharine in there, so don’t overdo it.
Understand your triggers
Chances are you have mood triggers. These could be biological, they could be emotional, they could be as simple as suddenly catching a whiff of the smell of fresh bread or being reminded of the day your grandfather died. In all cases, they have a profound effect on your mood and can send it spinning up or down without so much as a by-your-leave. Chances are you’re already aware of most of the negative ones, since as humans we tend to dwell on things that make us feel bad. The trick then becomes figuring out what makes you feel good… and not just good, but consistently good. Injecting yourself with drugs is nonsense if you can get the same feeling from running a few miles, and I have yet to find a better way to calm down than lying on a grassy hill, counting clouds on a sunny day.
Drugs are your friend
Don’t call your local smack dealer, those aren’t the kinds of drugs that I’m talking about. Instead, I want to touch on the fact that as humans our moods are heavily influenced by our biology, and in some cases we have direct control over that. Body chemistry can be controlled to some degree, and you don’t even have to do so illegally.
Exercise is a good one, because here something that’s good for you also comes with its own biological reward system: Endorphins. Once you power through the first few complaints your body throws at you, the rush you get from half an hour of exercise can take you perky through the rest of the day. The best thing is, muscle pain only happens during the first few weeks of exercise (after which it settles down to a far more pleasurable soreness), and in the meantime you’re getting the full benefit of your body’s own version of morphine.
Smile
Smile, and the world smiles with you. Frown, and you frown alone. Tons of self-help books, blog posts, sales coaches and psychology texts will tell you about the power of a smile, and I’m hardly the person qualified to lecture you on how it works. All I can really say is that if you make someone smile, it feels good, and smiling is an almost guaranteed way of doing that. Furthermore, consider the feedback loop you can create: If you’re happy, you smile, which makes you happy, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Furthermore, making someone else smile is a fantastic way of kicking this cycle off, and i can think of no better way than to lend a helping hand.
Don’t Believe In Limits
Limits and borders might seem like common sense, but are often simply self-imposed that exists solely in your mind. I’ve heard many excuses, and used many myself, but every time I’ve done that there’s a twinge in my mind that asks me whether it’s just me being lazy. The truth is that we as human beings have very few limits, and the only things stopping us from what we can imagine is the determination to pursue it. Think you can’t do something? You can. Believe me, you can. It might take a while, it might take quite a bit of effort, but you can, and the boost you get from accomplishing said goal is worth every ounce of effort. To put a different spin on it: I believe that if I try hard enough, I can fly. Nothing you can tell me will convince me otherwise. And I try, every day.
Set large goals, accomplish small ones
It does no good to constantly focus on the big picture, because it’s usually so big as to be intimidating. A much better approach is to subdivide the big picture into small pieces, and address them individually. That way you get that small rush of accomplishment far more often, and you never have to give up the feel-good humdinger of completing the entire project.
Never Hesitate…
To take a great quote from Transformers: “In 20 years when you look back on this day, don’t you wish you had the guts to get in the car?” Life is full of missed opportunities, and too often it’s because of hesitation. So your mind sometimes tells you that this might be a bad idea, but you wouldn’t be considering it if it was suicidal now, would you. And if the only thing that comes out of taking a risk is that you might have a few unpleasant bruises (physical or otherwise), at least you’ll be able to look back and confidently say that it’s not for you.
…but always take your time.
Rushing only adds to your stress, and if you move through life too quickly you won’t even notice the roses, much less find time to smell them. Unless you are in a situation that demands split-second decisions in order to save lives, chances are the stress is artificially fabricated. Slow down, take your time, and you’ll be able to do things properly, enjoy what you’re doing, and appreciate everything around you.
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