What Do You Mean by a Positive Outlook?

A positive outlook is not the same thing as looking at life through rose-colored glasses or going through life singing “it’s all good!” A positive outlook can mean simply finding fun, humor or enjoyment in everyday activities, even when you are feeling sick, depressed or perhaps grieving. It means that you try to find the positive as you go through whatever process you are going through.  Maybe you have just lost someone very near and dear to you—having a positive outlook may mean remembering all the good times with that person.  Maybe you can emphasize all the good things that person did in their lives and make an active choice to do similar good things for others in your life.  A positive outlook can be finding or re-finding the relationships in your life that are important to you.
 
Bad things happen to good people—we see that all the time all around us.  Bad things happen to all of us—but maybe just maybe you can pull some good out of it.  Say you have just gotten out of a bad relationship—and maybe this is the umpteenth bad relationship you have had—this may be a good time to figure out the reasons WHY you have put yourself in that position.  This may be a good time to figure out what you have learned—and how to best implement those “lessons”.

 

When you or someone you know is sick—people talk about “cheering” you up.  This is perhaps the instinct we all have for mind-body medicine. We know instinctively that if we go visit someone who is sick with a book, flowers or a card that can cheer them up, we are helping them recover, at least in some small way.  If we are the one who is sick, we appreciate the fact that someone cares enough about us to visit—and buy those flowers, that card or that book.

Now, no one is saying it is easy to have a positive outlook—certainly not all the time! In fact, it can be very hard! The fact is that we all die, but it is up to each one of us to live as we want to live—and if you can do that with a few more smiles or a bit more laughter, so much the better!