Ultimate Optimism

When I was in college, I hung around with three lovely, but quite negative people. They spent a lot of time complaining about their families, classes, teachers, other people in our class (about half of whom were utter pricks, it has to be said). To be honest, I could only sympathize - most of the time, they were right. But since I'd lived through worse (I had a crappy childhood, remember), I could see the bright side of things - we were living in a beautiful rural town in the south of France that was just big enough to have a high street, and small enough to be picturesque; the weather was most often beautiful even in winter, not all our classmates were spoilt idiots etc. Thus I became the positive one of our group.

At the time, we were living that carefree phase between the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood, where your parents finally loosen up a bit, and you don't yet have to pay your own bills. Now that I'm an adult, it seems all I do is worry. I'm rarely optimistic about anything, I want what I don't have, and once I've got it, I fret about losing it (this is especially true of money, financial independance etc.). Nans is the optimist in our couple, and that is saying something.

This morning, I woke up feeling shite. I had another cold, most certainly aggravated by all the dust mites hiding in our multiple duvets and polar bed covers, and it was Sunday, and yesterday had also been crap, and the perspective of an entire day in bed (boring, but necessary) was depressing. I felt completely useless.

Nans then introduced me to a method of positive thinking that I can only describe as revolutionary. Instead of saying "don't think about the problems", he made me think about each one and turned it on it's head.
"I'm ill again. I'm sick of being ill!"
"Well, at least your ill on a Sunday. You'd stress out if you had to cancel work. It's just a cold, if you spend today resting you should have recovered enough to work tomorrow. And it's warm and cosy in here, and the cat is being all cute and cuddly, and I'll take care of you."
"I haven't got my next assignment yet..."
"Good, because you're too ill to do it. They'll send it next week, when you're better."
"I didn't get paid as much as I thought I would."
"Doesn't matter, because I got paid more than I thought I would, and I sweet-talked the treasury lady into not making us pay taxes for another year. We're comfortable right now."
"I'm bored. I've got nothing to read and the laptop won't let me use word."
"It'll let you use the Internet if you ask it nicely. And you can always come and snuggle up on the sofa, in front of the telly otherwise."

By then I'd run out of problems, and was feeling much better anyway. He really is awesome.

Note about my crappy childhood - I've mentioned it before, and I think it may need some clarification. Apparently, when you say you had an unhappy childhood, people tend to think child abuse, neglectful parents, beatings etc. Which is my case is false. My childhood would have been perfectly happy if I'd been sent to a school that dealt efficiently with bullying. This finally happened, after 6 years and three school changes, when I was transferred to the school my dad worked in. I don't actually know if they dealt with bullying very well, because everyone was too scared to bully me - my dad's hobby is boxing, and it shows. Anyway, he was a popular teacher.

I'm not saying my parents were perfect. They were young, and I was their first, and my dad only came along when I was five, and like most parents, they made quite a few mistakes. But they love us to bits. Nobody can accuse my parents of abuse or neglect. They tried their best - still are - and given the circumstances, they did brilliantly. After all, I wouldn't be so awesome if it weren't for them. :)