When I first started this blogging stuff one of my goals was to re-evaluate events and happenings in my life and try to determine what I could have done differently to have prevented so much of my current unhappiness and negativity (and I have to say that right now I'm feeling a lot of negativity because I had just edited this paragraph beautifully and WIX crashed and lost everything I did. Sure the software saves your work as you go along but somehow it deleted my text and saved it to a state of where it was when I was before I started so I am going to have to rewrite now and it is very depressing. There is no way to revert back to a previous "draft" state so my thoughts are lost. So much for originality. Thanks a lot WIX!) So as I was saying (and resaying now) I am editing and rewording this posting today (January 5, 2017) from a work that was originally posted on my WordPress.com site back in May of 2013. With the original posting of the same title: "Optimism...Does it really work?" I was hoping to start coming at life from a more positive view point thinking that by taking that stance I might start looking at life from a more optimistic view point however I have found that today my circumstances are not any better, and in fact, especially of late, my point of view is the most negative is has ever been.
As long as I can remember I've looked at the negative side of life always taking a pessimistic view. I assume I was always like this but would like to believe that at some point in my life there was reason for hope and possibilities but all I can remember now is that I and my life were the definition (in living form) of Murphy's Law. When I was a kid there I remember a specific "Bewitched" episode that contains of quotes that since I heard it has been more or less the mantra of my life in which anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time. The quote occurred during an episode in which either Aunt Clara or the maid Esmeralda zapped up Benjamin Franklin from the past and I am paraphrasing because I can't recall exact words but the gist is still the same but his statement went something along the lines of his always being pessimistic. Samantha commented that she found this odd because history made him sound like he was always so optimistic and he responded that 'optimists are always looking for good things to happen so they are frequently disappointed while pessimists are expecting the worst so when it happens they got pretty much what they expected and therefore are not disappointed.' I remember as a kid thinking "What a great philosophy!" I don't know if at that point I made a conscious decision to live life looking at the negative side of everything or if it was already my nature to be a pessimist but to this day this philosophy seems to be the way my personality and general outlook have evolved.
I really want to be more upbeat and optimistic but just don't see it happening. I know that people don't like associating with people that are always sad and negative, they want positive and happy people to surround them but for some of us, people like me, this happy way of thinking is just not a natural thing, its contrary to my normal way of thinking.
I was recently on a job interview (well a phone job interview, not in person) and the recruiter that arranged it sent me an article to prepare for the meeting a piece was about how to perform and respond to the person doing the interview. One of things I read in that article stuck out in my mind and this was to be upbeat and happy... it said exactly what I just said in the previous paragraph, no one wants to be around a person that is always down and negative.
My whole life I have lived looking at the glass as being half empty and that is exactly the way I portray myself to everyone I meet and in every social situation I find myself. Trying to be optimistic is a difficult road for me because I've lived waiting for the other shoe to drop so long I easily slip back into an "OMG...what if (this or that) happens" constant worry mode...thoughts like keeping my job...I am forever worried that I will lose my job. Thoughts of financial implosion; thoughts of health issues; thoughts of how friends will betray, backstab, and talk about me. I don't know why I think these things, my job for instance I really don't have any reason to think that my job is jeopardy other than my insecurities about my performance (which is always very good) and how others at work perceive me, but its in the back of my mind and not a day goes by where I don't consider how difficult life would be if I had to start over, searching for a new job with all the obstacles I face, my age, my race, etc...
I'm constantly comparing myself and what I have and what I do with what others have and what others do and I always find that I fall short. I always feel inadequate. I know there are people that have less and are in much worse shape health and career wise but its this damn envious side of me that worries more about how I don't believe I am living or capable of living a life or lifestyle equal to those whom I am envying. My age plays a big part of the my insecurities, I don't feel like I have any value as a 50 year old man. A 20 year old college something can do the same job at half the pay which I guess is a being reason the fear of losing my job is always in the back of my mind. Then there are all the other things I worry about now too.... my health, my partner's health, and my dogs health and happiness among so many other things... I could go on and on... how can I possible be optimistic?
There was a period when I had been trying to take a "Yes I can" approach to things and for a while the mindset seemed to be working. One of my favorite sitcoms is "The Golden Girls" and there was an episode when Rose took the girls to a group of optimists where everyone was smiling like a bunch of idiots with these exaggerated tooth showing grins. Dorothy, resistant at first, gave in and decided to change her point of view and after she did she said she felt like everything was going her way... silly little things like the butcher having given her a great slice of meat convinced her that she had been wrong about pessimism being the optimal mode to live by, she started thinking that the positive thinking was making everything turn out positive and successful. She became so optimistic that when Rose (or someone I can't remember anymore) commented on it being a beautiful day Dorothy responded..."You're welcome" giving herself credit for the sun shining as if her positive thoughts made affected the weather.
I guess that I have been a downer for so long that I just haven't noticed that other people have picked up on it as a natural part of my personality. The perception people seem to have of me could explain why I have such difficulty maintaining friendships, people don't want to be friends with or hang with a constant downer. There is a person whom I have mentioned before in my postings and I at one point would have described fondly as my BFF (not these days lately, he and I don't talk much at all anymore but again...another story); a while back this "BFF" read one of my postings and apparently I had inferred that I was going to start looking at the bright side of things he responded (i.e. be positive) and when he read this his response to me was: "You? Looking at the bright side?... RIGHT!"... or something to that effect. I always find that whenever people describe me they generally say I'm a worrier, or unsocial, and recently someone said I seem "perpetually unhappy". I know I am in a constant state of worry but I guess that its such a normal way of functioning to me that I'm not even aware of it anymore despite everyone I ever meet picking up on it almost immediately.
I worry so much I don't even realize I'm worrying. People will tell me to stop worrying and I'm perplexed they even noticed I was worrying. Another thing people say to me is to stop being negative when I was oblivious to the fact that I was giving a negative impression. My worrying feeds my pessimistic attitude and in return my pessimism feeds my worry. I wish that I could maintain a positive point of view as I believe a new attitude would be healthier not just mentally by physically as well and I have a feeling it would result in a happier social life too.
This is a reprint and edit from my Wordpress.com blog originally published: May 20, 2013