Needles. They said it wouldn’t hurt, they said it would be over in the blink of an eye. I trembled as I thought of everything that could go wrong. What if they put the needle in the wrong place and I bled to death? What if I lost the feeling in my arm and was never able to move it again? For the last two weeks leading up to my injection that was all I could think about. Everything that could go wrong was always in the back of my mind, preoccupying my every thought. When I finally went in to get the injection I was almost in tears. The doctor was like “Now dear, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” I thought, of course I don’t want to do this, are you crazy?! She even went so far as to assure me that no one has ever died from this procedure before. When they finally numbed me up and stuck the needle in I couldn’t even feel it, and it was over in less than 10 minutes. All that worrying for nothing.
Raise your hand if you have ever let the fear of the unknown hold you back from enjoying life to the fullest. I’m guessing that everyone raised their hand. Whether it was an important job interview or going out on a blind date or giving a speech in front of a large crowd. All of those “what if” questions start popping up and we start to imagine the worst. As humans, we have a bias towards noticing negative news over positive news (Altucher). Same goes for having negative thoughts over positive thoughts. It is just plain easier to be pessimistic than it is to be optimistic. When I ask my friends what they want to be when they grow up or what their dream is, the most common answer I hear is, “I want to be happy.” We fall into this common misconception that if we make this amount of money or we get this type of car or have this many friends we will be happy. The truth is that being happy is a present-day activity, it’s a choice. It’s not a destination, or something you work towards. The people that are happy choose to be happy. They choose to be optimistic instead of pessimistic. No one has everything perfect. No one is perfect. Even the people that are happy have their bad days when they can’t stop worrying about a certain upcoming event in their life. The difference is that they notice it, pull out of it, and keep trudging forward with a smile on their face.
Next time you catch yourself worrying or having irrational fears about an upcoming event try to imagine everything that could go right. Look at all the positive possibilities. Try seeing yourself getting that job interview, making a great connection on that date, and giving the best speech in history. If we can learn to be automatically optimistic in everything we do and stop worrying about the future we can enjoy life in the moment.
Set yourself up for success and happiness by being optimistic. :)
Sources:
Altucher, James. "HOW TO GET AN MBA FROM EMINEM." Altucher Confidential RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment