As one of life's natural pessimists, I feel like the world is obsessed with 'the power of positive thinking' and 'keeping your hopes up', and I feel like I've just fundamentally missed something - what's so great about getting your hopes up?
To get this out of the way - yes, there's context. I'm almost certainly currently having a very early loss in a much wanted pregnancy. I saw the GP today and she agreed that this was almost certainly what was happening, but then added 'but we can't be sure so try and think positive!'. How could it be possibly be helpful for me to 'think positive'? Surely the quicker I accept this the quicker I'm over it? (This isn't a criticism of the GP, by the way, who was generally lovely) (Oh and also - this isn't a plea for sympathy about my chemical pregnancy! Flowers neither needed or expected!)
But, anyway, more generally: I feel like my approach - expect the worst, be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen - is just sound sense. I can completely see how being such a pessimist that you can't enjoy good things happening is bad, but I'm not like that. To be honest, I feel like I know more than one person who has made terrible life choices by being over-optimistic - bought houses they couldn't afford on the vague hope that their financial situation would improve, taken wild leaps of faith in their career that didn't work out, stuck in a bad relationship due to an unshakeable belief that their partner would change soon. Yet, the world still seems to be really wedded to the idea that optimism is the key to success and happiness. AIBU to be Team Glass Half Empty and proud?
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AIBU?
To not understand why other people are obsessed with 'thinking positive'?
108 replies
MargaretCavendish · 06/03/2017 19:13
OP posts:
HecateAntaia ·
06/03/2017 19:47
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