Don't Be An Optimist!
Man, I’m toast! I just arrived in Zurich having ridden 800km (500mi) through torrential rain and flooded roads from France to Switzerland.
I did the dumbest thing along the way...
I accidentally re-programmed my GPS to take me to the south of France instead of to Zurich for my Dad’s 70th birthday (my GPS thought it was taking me on a beach holiday!). I only realized my mistake after I had ridden 200km in the wrong direction, freezing my ass off in the pissing rain!
Instead of camping overnight like I had planned, the thought of a warm bed rather than a wet sleeping bag compelled me to hit the highway and blast all the way to Zurich in one stretch.
It was one of the toughest rides of my life. I ploughed through the rain for 8 hours, keeping myself awake by singing to myself in my helmet, and arrived in Zurich at 9pm, exhausted and wet, but with a smile on my face.
Now, you might think that I used positive thinking to get through this grueling ride with a smile. People often comment that they love to call me up because I always sound happy on the phone... Some even call me an optimist, but that’s just not true.
Want to know why?
First, Be Warned...
I’m going to get philosophical on your ass, but if you really get what I’m talking about, you’ll find yourself a lot happier too...
You see, optimists are delusional...
So are pessimists...
Nothing wrong with that, except that most optimists or pessimists I know end up depressed...
Why?
Because years of unsuccessfully trying to match their positive only or negative only outlook reality has worn them out. What reality? The reality that life DOES have ups and downs, not exclsively ups and not exclusively downs.
Science Tells Us That We Live In A Dualistic Universe
and that means that everything has a flipside. Black has white, good has bad, creation has destruction etc...
Even in the subatomic realm (that’s the really small stuff that makes up everything), all matter is made up of positive AND negative charges - not one or the other. Both of these energies combined, create life as we know it. Without either of them, life could not exist.
So when an optimist only looks at the positive in life, he denies the negative, and is just as delusional the pessimist denying the positive by only looking at the negative. The universe ALWAYS has TWO sides, but both the optimist and pessimist see only ONE of these. That’s why they’re delusional.
Are you following me still? Hang in there, it’ll all make sense now...
How To Be Authenticall Happy
If you want to be authentically happy (not just a person who pretends they are happy to others, but is secretly miserable), you’ve got to find BOTH sides (positive and negative) in your life and see the benefits of each.
When you ‘get it’, you become GRATEFUL for your situation, no matter what it is. In my opinion, gratitude is the coolest emotion ever invented. If there were a gratitude pill, I’d be the first in line!
In a few moments, I’ll share a book with you that might just blow your mind, because the authors in this book are grateful for some pretty unusual stuff...
So, if YOU want to be authentically happy and deeply thankful for your life right now, you could begin with this simple exercise.
- At the top of a clean sheet of paper, write down something that is bothering you, that you perceive as negative.
- Now, draw a line down the centre of the page and in the left hand column, write down twenty negative things about the thing that is bothering you.
- In the right hand column, write down a positive benefit for each negative that you wrote down. Don’t skip any!
At first it might be hard to find a benefit for each negative item, but if you stick with it, you’ll find them and if you complete the exercise, you’ll find yourself grateful for the very thing that was previously bothering you.
I'm A Recovering Optimist
As a recovering optimist myself, it was a huge relief for me to allow myself to embrace the negative in my life without judging it. I’m genuinely a much happier person more of the time because I’m no longer living in a dream world resisting reality the way that it really is.
Imagine what might have happened had the American government taken this insight and looked for the benefits in 911?
THANK GOD I
One of my stories about embracing my own racial prejudice has recently been published in a fabulous book filled with 43 stories of gratitude stories called “Thank God I.”
Each story shares a journey of the author overcoming a tough life lesson and finding gratitude within it.
Some of the story titles are:
* Thank God I Was Raped
* Thank God My Son Died
* Thank God I Went Bankrupt
* Thank God I Was A Racist (my story)
If you want to read something inspiring instead of watching the depressing news, go get yourself a copy here: http://www.designer-life.com/thankgodi and click the ‘Store’ link at the top of the page.
So how is your head? Did I make this pretty advanced philosophy understandable? Hope so...
Till next time, make the rest of this week one to be grateful for.
Your partner in success,
P.S. I acknowledge John DeMartini for teaching me some of this cool stuff.
P.P.S. If you want to follow my current trip through Europe on my motorcycle, check out my blog at http://www.designer-life.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Bruce Muzik, founder of Designer Life, is an internationally acclaimed speaker, author, master communicator and an expert on how to use the human mind to release your potential and find success effortlessly.
He approaches his craft uniquely by blending leading-edge physics with practical spirituality, providing real world successes for his students around the globe.
Visit his websites at http://www.designer-life.com and http://www.RelaxAndAttract.com and claim your free 1-hour audio courses that will teach you how to begin living an effortless life.
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