I have had a lot of people tell me that life is what you make of it. Here are a number of the cliches that I have been told the past while: If you have a positive outlook, your life will be great with positive things & people. If things are not going well, you are just looking at things in the wrong way. Make lemonade out of lemons. If you're experiencing bad, you just have to think better. The glass is half full not half empty.
Perhaps those things are true, but when do we stop making everything rainbows and skittles and start looking at reality? I think that the people who think that they can change their bad things in to goo things by changing the way they look at these things or think about these things are simply and utterly delusional and in complete denial.
Shit happens. A lot. Let's be realistic about it and instead of covering it up with some odor neutralizing kitty litter of mind games, let's face the facts that no matter how much sweet smelling kitty litter is piled on it, at some point you have to get your hands close to dirty and scoop the poop.
2 comments:
It's attitudinal. You have a pessimistic, cynical way of looking at things that colors how you see what they are saying. And their overly optimistic stance colors what they are saying to you.
I have seen it at work; someone in a former job had no use for negativity. He was always positive and upbeat, no matter how much our mutual boss beat him down. And, sure enough, good things happened to him. He was like Teflon.
Being a realist is a good place to be; however, but your last paragraph strongly shows you are not a realist. A realist will see both the good and the bad -- everything in balance. Nothing is "rainbows and skittles" and nothing is "shit happens... a lot." There is, instead, some middle ground where things happen that can be construed as favorable and others that can be construed as unfavorable. And a realist simply deals with whichever comes his/her way. Few people are true realists. Most people who think of themselves as realists are pessimists trying to make themselves believe they aren't "that bad" or "that negative."
The real key is to find the strength in pessimism; in and of itself, it is not a negative. If you let your pessimism stop you from making decisions, moving forward, and doing what needs to be done, then it is negative. If, however, you let your pessimism prepare you for what may come, and allow yourself some respite when things aren't as bad as you suspected, and you continue to move forward toward your goals, then pessimism can be a good driving force.
oh, I don't know, there has been a lot of poop that's had to be scooped since 2012 started. Mostly materially, which ultimately is tied to financially, which is ultimately tied to mentally.
New furnace, new roof, car repairs, new rodent problems and it appears that the plumbing issues are rearing their ugly heads again as we have to flush multiple times and kitchen sink and shower are slow to drain. The previous excuses when we brought plumbers in who didn't want to go under to the house in to the crawl space was that the frost changed the grade of the drain/sewer pipe. No frost excuse now, so I suspect that I will need to find more money somewhere soon to fix this issue.
Really, there hasn't been a let-up in the piles of shit that have happened since Nov 15, 2011. Mentally, physically or financially.
Those that don't have to live it have expressed the positives in the emergency furnace replacement as = your house didn't burn down (really, not sure that's a positive at this point) and the emergency roof replacement as = your roof didn't collapse in and bring down the house (but then insurance would have paid for it) and that the car didn't die on the side of the road, etc and perhaps I truly am just too far gone to see anything positive, but none of those things that are expressed as positives sound, look or feel as such to me.
Perhaps realist isn't the proper word, no and while I admit I'm not a positive person, I don't feel that I am a pessimist. I do much for others, I give thanks for the blessings that I do have and am thankful that unlike others, I have had help at each of these points in the past 8 months. I also acknowledge that "God never gives more than we can handle", but I'm really tired of having that maximum load point tested.
I will be happy to see the other side of 2012. 2013 has to have something in store that doesn't involve constant trials, turbulance and torment.
Perhaps that does make me an optimist.
ROFLMAO!
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