Deborah S. Podwika,M.A.
           
Kankakee Community College
Humanities and Social Science Division 
Psychology Department - P.O. Box 888, River Road
Kankakee, IL 60901-0888
            
Office: L342
Office: 815.933.0283
Fax:    815.933.0217
            
Email: [email protected] 
Web: http://www.geocities.com/debbiepodwika/
           
Created: September 27, 1996
Format: Netscape 4.7
Revised: December 7, 2002
Are You An Optimist OR A Pessimist?

I have been giving some thought lately to optimism and pessimism. 
Basically, these are attitudes. 
Attitudes that shape and formulate our entire existence. 
I mean, have you ever met a happy pessimist? 
Of course not!

In short, our optimism or pessimism is this:

The way we interpret the past
The way we experience and view the present
The way we imagine the future

Have you given much thought about how your attitude, whether you are an
optimist or a pessimist, affects you business, organization or school? 
Have you thought about how it affects you personally? And what about the
team you are a part of?

What is optimism? It is a belief that things in our past were good for us,
even if that means they were hard and taught us lessons. It is also the 
belief that things will be better in the future.

Here are some contrasts between optimism and pessimism and how they 
affect us:

Optimism breathes life into you each day
Pessimism drains you

Optimism helps you to take needed risks
Pessimism plays it safe and never accomplishes much

Optimism improves those around you
Pessimism drags them down

Optimism inspires people to great heights
Pessimism deflates people to new lows

There is only one way that optimism and pessimism are the same and that 
is that they are both self-fulfilling. If you are an optimist, you will
generally find that good things happen to you. And if you are a pessimist,
you will find yourself in the not-so-good situations more often than not.

So can a person just become an optimist? Yes! We can choose to look at the
world any way we want to. We can choose to look at the world and think the
worst, or we can tell ourselves the good things about each situation. 
As you find yourself looking at your enterprise, begin to view it through
the eyes of an optimist, and you will reap the rewards listed above, and 
so will the people around you.

There are tremendous benefits to being an optimist, as stated above. But
there are some pessimists out there who will say, "But that isn't 
realistic." I say "Who cares?" If things go awry, at least I have spent my
time beforehand enjoying life and not worrying about it. And, being an 
optimist, I would view the "negative" situation as an opportunity to grow
and learn. So I can even look forward to my failures because they will be
stepping stones, and learning tools to be applied to my future success.

Have you ever met a successful pessimist? Become an optimist and see your 
world change before your eyes!

~ By Chris Widener
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