Expecting the Worst All the Time Can Make Your Life Miserable

We live in a time when things are not getting any easier no matter how much we want to hope for a big change coming up. The sad fact is that it took this many years to mess things up, and I am not only talking here about the political situation. It didn't happen overnight, but was a combination of many mistakes, reactions to thoughtless or false actions and at times just the signs of the time to bring us as a whole to the point we are at.

It will take just as long, if not longer to fix the wrongs and mistakes that have been committed by so many human beings all over the world. In some cases we will never be able to fix things, because they have now officially come to an end, have been woefully exhausted or are no longer able to be "un-engineered".

Even on a much smaller scale in our own homes, parenting styles and relationships we can see the stress, stretches, worries, fears and separateness from each other sneaking its way into almost every household. Family Unity, deep and caring love between spouses, and "us against the world" attitudes that used to be largely something you just were raised into are now often replaced by "it is all about me", depression excuses, singular thinking and actions. Watch the rise of divorce rates closely all over the world, the rate of single parents come up annually, more and more mothers deserting their off spring, and that is only the beginning. Loneliness these days is rampant and so is depression, anxiety, violence and many other not so positive emotions.

We may have more then enough reasons to look at the world and our everyday behaviors through less then rose colored glasses, but expecting the worst all the time is only going to serve to make your life even more miserable then it already has to be.

The English Poet John Milton gave us this particular piece of wisdom;

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven."

How very true this statement is. When times are already a bit tougher then usual, it does not serve us to imagine and with that power of the mind invite to us even further dire consequences. I am not asking you to be a downright foolish optimist, but to consider trying to find the positive in most situations whenever possible.

Ladies, how many times have you imagined your husband out cheating when he came home a little later then expected. Perhaps you had been fighting a lot lately and your marriage is / was less then romantic. His sexual interest towards you seems to have diminished to the point of almost non-existent. Perhaps that morning you have fought yet again about something valid but foolish in the big scheme of things. As you both parted neither of you was sad to see the other go. Now as the day progressed your mind has painted woeful pictures in your mind and often imagined slights towards you. Shows of disinterests are being blown out of proportions. The fact may be simple that he was held up, had a bad day and needed a bit of cooling down first. Your mind has constructed a completely different picture and your reactions upon his return will reflect that mental image instead of the one that is welcoming to your returning spouse.

Where there has not been a real issue as of yet, now an issue is being created. You are looking for things that are possibly wrong. Is that a strange scent on his clothing? He smiled silently to himself while looking off into space. Is he dreaming of another woman? He is too tired to even cuddle with you that night? Has he found satisfaction elsewhere? As you can see each little action, which we wouldn't even consider odd under normal circumstances, now is suddenly horrible and provoking of further negative thoughts. With other words your mind is creating the Hell you live in. Of course sometimes those signs are what they appear, but more often then not they are the catalyst to bringing that behavior about. I have heard many gents in counseling hear say; "If I am being accused of it, I might as well do it!" Not a good idea, but understandable human behavior.

It is a well known fact that you attract more of what you focus on. So if your entire focus is on feeling miserable, being fearful of the future, focusing on what you don't have instead of looking for the few things you do have, you are only calling more of the same to you.

Remember the old saying "Misery loves Company?" Have you ever noticed that most people can only stand to be a short period of time around a person who is continuously negative? I am not saying there aren't reasons to feel sad, grieve, feel horrible about losses, death etc. Those are natural human reactions, but there has to come a healing period and a desire to want to get better. You need to be willing and able to go from Victim to Survivor. That is a powerful weapon in your arsenal of achievement.

I can almost hear some of you telling me that this is easier said then done. That I don't know what I am talking about, or even more bluntly that I am full of BS. I assure you that I know exactly what I am talking about; just like all of us I had my share of disasters in my life, of loss, pain and suffering. We all have a Story to tell once we get a little bit older.

Perhaps making that all important shift from living in self-imposed misery is not easy, but then nothing in life comes easy or cheap. There is a price to pay for wanting to move forward and that price is letting go of feeling sorry for you and starting to focus on something much more important.

Make finding a solution to the problems at hand a priority. You will be surprised just how liberating it is when you start taking steps (yes even baby steps) towards fixing something that has held you down. You will feel empowered in a way you have never felt before. With each small success you reach you will find yourself becoming stronger, less prone to being miserable and bouncing back faster. Nobody says you will be suddenly fantastic, will have everything you want and need, but you will find that you can deal with things a lot better when your focus shifts from negativity to finding positive solutions to better your circumstances.

When things happen to us that are not positive right from the beginning, we see them as bad. If we wait a while we may see that it took that particularly less then pleasant experience to open an entire now venue for us. Was it ultimately good or bad that it happened, nobody can really tell. I can assure you that it happened for a reason, even if we don't want to or can not see it at that moment. In my case for example dealing with the loss of my child to SID, going through a divorce and losing just about everything I ever had, may have felt like devastation for a long time, but in the end each of those has forced me to look at myself and the people around me in a different light and has enabled me to do things that I would not have been able to would I not had to suffer through them.

My husband (yes he is one of the positives that came from my divorce to my first husband) and I have two completely different outlooks on life. He always expects the worst out of every situation and every person, this way he will never get disappointed. He considers himself an eternal realist knowing that most things in life will go wrong if they can. I on the other hand am in his eyes a dreamer. That is not entirely true, since I am well aware of the fact that there is a good possibility that things will go wrong, I just refuse to focus on it. I look for the positive outcome in everything I do, hoping and trusting that the universe has good things in store for me. I may get disappointed by people and situations, but in general most do not disappoint me too badly. Those that do will simply be seen as a lesson to be learned and to avoid in the future. I consider those Lessons material for growth if you will.

Which of our outlooks is correct is for each of you in turn to decide. I personally figure that there is enough misery in this world without me having to add more with my imagination.

As always thank you for taking your time and reading this Article. I would like to suggest a book for you to read, that has helped me a lot in affirming my belief in happiness and looking for the positive.

"Happy for No Reason" by Marci Shimoff should and could be easily sited as a Reference source for this Article, and even if my words are my own, her Stories and Exercises can only be a wonderful aid in seconding what I am trying to convey to you.