When
the storms of life
come your way,
look at what you can
learn from them.
OPTIMISTS
DON’T KNOW
WHAT IT’S
LIKE TO HAVE
BAD LUCK
They most definitely experience
adversity, but they see the
silver lining, says Steven M.
Southwick, co-author of the
book Resilience. “Instead of
catastrophising a situation,
optimists tend to take a step
back and keep things in
perspective,” he says.
Suppose you bungle a
presentation. Instead of writing
it off as terrible, optimists frame
it as, “That was bad. How can
I do better in the future?”
Experts believe you can develop
this type of resilience. “We
often overpredict how extreme
and long-lasting our negative
emotions will be,” says Robert L.
Leahy, director of The American
Institute for Cognitive Therapy
and author of The Worry Cure.
Circumstances don’t drive
happiness – it’s your response.
For instance, there is more
than one way to react to a
test that didn’t go well. And
an optimist thinks, “Maybe
I didn’t study hard enough.
I’ll do something different next
time.” In other words, you didn’t
fail – your approach did. You’ll
think of other strategies to try.
PERCEPTION
REALITY
THE HAPPIEST
COUNTRY
on Earth goes to: Finland!
Australia came
in 10th (2018).THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD.
THERE’S NO WAY TO BE UPBEAT
PERCEPTION
REALITY
Bring your positive
outlook back by
looking at history,
not headlines.
“According to
just about
every indicator
of humanwellbeing, we’re
better off than any
other time in
history,” says Marian
Tupy, editor of
humanprogress.org.
For most of our
past,he says, people
lacked things such
as basic medicine.
The trouble
is that the bad
news of the day
comes right to
our phones and
checking history
takes effort.
A shortcut:
think about what
you have today thatyou wouldn’t have
had 100 years ago.
Refrigerators. Cars.
Mobile phones.
Internet.
To help keep
bad news from
overshadowing
everything else,
seek out other news.
Don’t lose sight
of the fact child
mortality, illiteracy,
and poverty are
down worldwide.
And, even in
tragedies, there
are stories of
human resilience
to be found.self care