Optimism
One thing that everyone has thought about at least once in their life is what is the key to happiness? The key to happiness can be explained in one word, optimism. With optimism you can overcome anything life throws at you. A positive outlook on things can change your whole perspective on any obstacle you might have to overcome in life. I feel that I have an optimistic view on life and its obstacles. So far, it has helped me tremendously with the decisions in my life. I believe that if everyone looked at life in an optimistic way, the world would be a better, more efficient place than it already is.
When someone loses a really close friend, or family member, it brings sorrow and mourning. Sometimes this sorrow can overwhelm a person for months, maybe even years. It is very hard for some people to get over it because they ask themselves questions: Is there something I could have done? Why did it have to happen? Why so soon? You can’t ask yourself these questions. You have to be positive at all times. When I lose a close friend or family member, the first thing I say to myself is, it was their time to go. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t mourn the death of a close one, what I am saying is this: If everyone looks at the death as a part of life, it will be much easier to overcome the sorrow that it will bring to you. This is just one example of having a positive outlook on things. Having this view on this situation could stop people from making bad decisions. For example, after the death of a close one, someone might attempt suicide, or gain a lot of weight. By looking at this situation in a positive way, you won’t gain any weight and won’t do harmful things to your body.
Optimism doesn’t only help you with long term decisions; it also helps with short term decisions. In my life, I have a gut instinct that I always automatically follow, without even thinking about it. More times than not, this gut instinct I received when it came time to make a decision was exactly the decision I should have made. When you are optimistic, you look at each decision you make and feel you have made the right decision, making you never upset about your choices. If I do make a choice and it does more wrong than right, I use it as a well learned lesson. I try to grow off of the lesson I learn causing me to make the right decision next time. I believe that each decision you make, good and bad, is just preparation for future obstacles.
The next type of optimism that I will talk about is when you use a failure to drive yourself to do better. For example, an extremely talented high school football team makes it though the entire season undefeated and only has one game left to make it a perfect season. The team plays as hard as they can, but the opponent is a physically stronger team and ends up winning instead. An optimistic person, like myself, would notice that we lost because of lack of physical strength. I would then grow off of this. Each day of the off season I would use losing that game as my motivation to be better. If I workout all off season, and go into next season that much stronger, I might be able to have the perfect season that was shattered last year because of a lack of strength. This type of motivation can be used in other places in life as well. Whether it’s in school, at work, or just anytime you would like to improve yourself, you can use motivation to get what you want.
At this point in my life, I have been a very happy and successful young adult. I hope to continue this when applying for colleges. During the college process you need both motivation, and good decision making. Most people will get very stressed out in this chapter of their lives for two reasons. One reason is that there are so many colleges and majors out there; it is hard to just pick one. Another is thought that this is the beginning to the rest of your life. Your success and failure in life, for the most part, will be reflected upon this decision and your performance in college. While I am in the process of selecting my college, I will use a tool that I have been using for a while, optimism. I will look at this as a fun, eventful part of my life. I will motivate myself to look at new colleges and do research about them to figure out if I will fit in there. The decision I make in the end will definitely be the right one. How do I know this? I know this because a mix of the research I do and my gut instinct, will make the decision for me. This normally very stressful situation was turned into a very easy and fun one with just a little sense of optimism. I mean come on, getting rid of stress, overcoming sorrow, and never being upset about your choices would make anyone happy, wouldn’t you agree?
