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The Family Girl Blogs
(aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") 
Blog #57: It's Half Full! To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link:http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs |
It is disheartening at times (lately it's almost all the time), to be reading tales of woe and hardship, of depression and sadness, here in my favorite site. I suppose our community has more than its share of hardship stories. More than other equivalent communities, I'm sure. I can understand that. I've been there, too, after all. But, even so, I wish there were more positive posts. Goodness knows I try to be positive in my blogs as often as I can, if just to provide a contrast to what is apparently the norm now here in the Blogs section of BCTS.
I cannot really comment on how bad it is for some, but I do know that it's quite easy to write about the bad things. And it's sometimes a lot harder to write about the good things, especially if they come all too infrequently (or at least they can appear to).
A lot of people here are supportive to fellow members, especially to those who write about the darker side of life. I just wish these writers who frequently write these dark posts would take a break, and try to post about something more positive for a change.
People take a lot of good things from BCTS, especially the supportive, encouraging comments that people give us all the time. But perhaps it is time to take a break and give something back for a change instead of taking all the time, and maybe write a positive kind of blog next time.
While looking for a nice graphic for the post, I came across something from Sardonic Salad: in it, a scientist, Dr. Hamilton, was taking notes on his latest breakthrough experiment on converting pessimists to optimists. As he observed his test subject flounder in a big glass of water, the test subject yelled, "Half full!! It's half full!!"
Writing too often about depressing things can be self-fulfilling. As Hamlet said in Shakespeare's famous play, "there is nothing good or bad, only thinking makes it so."
It's time to make a change, I think. Half full is so much better than half empty.
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Comments
I'm trying to be more positive
it helps when life cooperates, though
Underneath all that Grey...
Gandalf was 'White' all along:
Frodo:
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf:
So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring
Things often don't change or get better, but we always have the capacity to get better no matter what we face, aye? Thanks for the encouragement!
Love, Andrea Lena
"Optimism is a survival trait ..."
... because the pessimist believes she is beaten before the challenge even begins, while the optimist knows that as long as there's hope, you can always find a way to win. Things are always going to go wrong – we've known that since long before Captain Murphy blessed us and cursed us with his damnable law. In the end, it's how we react to the bad and cherish the good that gives us what we need to move forward.
*hugs* Thanks for the gentle reminder, hon.
Randalynn
A pessimist
A pessimist is an optimist in diguise.
Disagree
To prepare for disaster you have to first believe that the disaster is possible, which is a pessamistic outlook. When you're taking a Pollyanna perspective hope becomes a mighty thin rope to cling to in the face of chaos. When you are in disaster relief pessamism is a survival trait, you plan for problems and develop responses. If the guy in the glass were truely a pessamist he'd have had a life vest. Instead he optimisticly assumed nothing would go bad and now he's in over his head.
An optimist thinks nothing can go wrong and is upset when it does. A pessamist thinks anything can go wrong (With a tip of the hat to Murphy) and is pleasently surprised when it doesn't. The pessasmist has less stress in his life.
PS: Please excuse any spelling errors, Firefox for Android doesn't have a spell checker.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
An optimist doesn't have ...
... to be a Pollyanna, Karen. An optimist just puts more weight on the possibility of her success than on the certainty of her failure. After all, if you start any journey believing you will never reach your destination, the possibility that you won't arrive is automatically higher than the possibility that you will.
Pessimism isn't really a healthy way to view the world. Making failure easier to take doesn't make it a better approach to life. Instead, pessimism makes failure the default end point for every effort a person makes, and reduces success to the status of a lucky break, instead of the result of determined, committed effort.
Maybe the best approach is mid-way between the two, leaning a little more towards optimism. A realist understands the possibility of failure but embraces the possibility of success, because without that possibility, it's truly pointless to try.
Randa
Realist
In reality the glass is both half full and half empty. It's just which side I want to do the interpretation an which side I want to be on.
Not quite...
To the true realist, IE, me, it's just a half a damned glass of water! It's neither half empty, nor half full. It's just half.
This is as close to an optimist a reformed pessimist will ever get... And optimists refuse to acknowledge that realists exist and just call us pessimists.
What you're referring to is actually what I call a "fence-sitter". Someone who keeps going back and forth between optimistic and pessimistic attitudes as the mood takes them. A true realist will recognize those moods and refuse to allow them utterance, instead they will examine the situation fully and state only the honest and complete truth. Both the positives and the negatives of the situation will be acknowledged in full.
Abigail Drew.
I often think I don't have
I often think I don't have much to write about because there isn't much drama in my life, but you've given me a new perspective.
I agree, Bobbie
I also understand why we hear many tales of woe here. Most societies treat transgender issues in peculiar and often negative ways, belittling those who profess any identification but that which their chromosomes would seem to dictate for them. Even some of the strongest individuals falter when faced with such opprobrium. It's human nature to seek solace where available.
I absolutely agree that looking to find the positive in situations is essential to a happy existence. If nothing else, there is growth potential in even the worst of circumstances. It can take time to find it. But when we practice patience, convinced that we will eventually understand what was initially incomprehensibly negative in a different light, we've made an essential change for the better.
Bad things happen. But what we do about them makes all the difference in the world.
SuZie
Pessimist see a glass half
empty of water/optimist sees a glass half full of water/pragmatic sees a half a glass of water while somebody that is thirsty will just drink the water.
May Your Light Forever Shine
And...
And the engineer will say the glass is to large.
And some of us go for the
And some of us go for the Terry Pratchett method.
"Hey! This isn't my glass, barkeep. My glass was full. Someone pinched some of it, and I want the full glass that I paid for!"
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
There are...
There are other answers as well...
One is "the glass is to big"...
The Glass
If it's empty and you fill it up to the halfway mark, it's half full.
If it's full and you empty it down to the halfway mark, it's half empty.
Simples. = )
Just my Two Cents....
Has anyone heard the saying "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst"? It's always good to have a positive attitude, but always should be balanced with the reality of any given situation. Is it half full or half empty? the answer is YES!
I thought
I thought it was Hope for the best, prepare for the worst and deal with what happens. But then again what do I know. :)
I've found...
I've found that it's helpful to think of our blessings - specially in times of woe. Sorta like the Rogers & Hammerstein song (from "The King and I") "Whenever I Feel Afraid"... Thinking happy thoughts and recognizing that even if it looks bleak, there's something good out there... Allows for working through life with a more positive attitude.
That said, I've also noticed that many of the positive blog posts (well, mine anyway) seem to get very little attention, while those expressing problems get attention. Some may be subconsciously not post about the good things, thinking they're to boring for others to care about. I dunno.
That said, when I had my health issues (okay, they're not gone, just in remission now) I actually stopped reading some folks blogs because they seemed to always be very dark and I was at a point where I didn't need anything. Probably my loss, and selfish of me. But, I was dealing with stuff in my life and didn't really have the "energy" left to deal with so many others.
It's also probably something like the News... A quick look at the number of positive vs. negative stories on any given news show will show you that they also report almost exclusively on the dark side. (They probably think it improves ratings.)
Annette
I think
I think that is understandable. A newspaper at one time decided to publish a story that was considered a feel good story. They wanted to do one at least once a day, only to find that their readers weren't interested in them. They were interested in the stories that were bad. So after just two weeks they stopped.
We also tend not to go to bad stories when we find ourselves in the same boat. Why? Because we would become more depressed as we focus on our own recovery. Doctors have found that people that have a happy are more likely to recover faster than those that are depressed. It has to do with our immune system. Far lest stress on it.
I wish you well and hope you feel better as I'm more out of my funk.
Post your feel good stories, for it will help balance out the ones that don't.