Feel Good Fridays

Even with his cone, Tucker is feeling good on Fridays.
Click here for a quick background on "Feel Good Fridays."

Are you an optimist or a pessimist or maybe, like most of us, you consider yourself a realist?  As a former realist, converted optimist, I thought being an optimist meant being idealistic, out of touch with reality, a dreamer, a hippie!  But the social meaning of optimism has changed in large part due to Positive Psychology.  Optimism is a way of thinking that allows for self-growth, love for other people, desire to change, and even success for ourselves.  It is the optimist that overcomes his failures and with resilience, works on to achieve success.  The optimist does not ignore problems, no he overcomes the minds natural tendencies to dwell on problems and decides to focus himself on the potential successes of the future.

And for your optimistic pleasure here is a quote from Seligman's book Learned Optimism about the benefits of optimism:

"The way we think, especially about health, changes our health.

Optimists catch fewer infectious diseases than pessimists do.

Optimists have better health habits than pessimists do.

Our immunes system may work better when we are optimistic.

Evidence suggest that optimists live longer than pessimists."