I’ve never seen a monument erected to a pessimist. – Paul Harvey
75 years ago, rocketry was in it’s infantcy, and the thought of one of them going to the moon was science fiction. Starting very soon, Virgin Galactic will take you into suborbital flights for only $200K. Don’t be pessimistic you didn’t make it as an astronaut, pretty soon, everyone who can save up will be able to go!
What does that mean?
Have you ever heard someone introduced as “the world famous pessimist…” or anything similar? Nope, me neither. People are generally introduced as being upbeat, positive, or enthusiastic.
To me, this is the general meaning behind this quote. People erect monuments and remember the people who were great. The people who are remembered as great tend to be the people who faced great odds, and yet managed to survive or succeed despite the situation.
Pessimists, faced with that situation, usually just fold up, give up, or run away. They are generally not even remembered as having existed or having been there. Their only chance at fame is actually infamy, if they were the leader of the side that lost, or the group that failed.
While most of us aren’t striving for a monument to be erected in our honor, we should (I hope) be willing to live the kind of lives that might cause someone to be willing to honor you and your name, should the occasion arise.
Why is having a positive mental attitude important?
This question answers itself, doesn’t it? What kind of life would you live if everything you did was accompanied with a sound track of “we’ll never make it,” “we’re doomed,” or “it’s never going to work”? That doesn’t sound very good, does it?
How many times would you have to hear that before you started to believe your own words? How long before you start doing less than your best? And how long after you’re not giving it your best shot will things start to go badly for you? From there, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
This applies, to a lesser extent, when someone close to you is a pessimist or a nay-sayer. They plant doubts in your head. You have to be able to pull those weeds (to keep with a gardening theme) and keep going, or risk them taking over your garden and choking out your crops.
You can do far more with a positive attitude than with a negative attitude. If you look for times in your past when you were positive and times when you were not, you can probably see the proof right in your own life. So why is it important to stay positive? 😉
Where can I apply this in my life?
Would anyone remember Jason and the Argonauts if they had given up when they faced the harpies, the giants, or any of the other obstacles in their path? If they had been pessimists, looking only at what the challenges were, they might have given up. Instead they focused on what needed to be done to achieve their goals, and set about accomplishing them.
To me, that is what life is about. Getting things done. And that is much easier to do if one has a positive attitude, rather than an attitude that is less than positive. It seems so simple, so straight forward in theory. Yet somehow, in practice, it can be a bit of a challenge.
Take a moment and think of the things in your life you aren’t doing primarily because you’re pessimistic about the results. Grab some paper and write a few of them down, long with the reasons why you are pessimistic about the outcome of any future attempts.
With the list in hand and the things you wrote about in mind, take some time and consider what has changed since you became discouraged. Have you gained any skills, tools, knowledge, or methods which might result in a better outcome? Do you know anyone who might be able to help you, or have any other resource you might be able to utilise to get a better outcome?
Just because something didn’t work in the past, doesn’t mean it never will. Space flight use to be impossible. Then it was the realm of the super-power governments. Now, not only are other countries participating, there are private companies doing orbital launches. Soon you will be able to book a sub-orbital flight in a commercial spacecraft. A lot has changed in the last 75 years.
Look at your list and gather the thoughts you had about what has changed relating to each of the items on the list. How many of the items on your list are you feeling a little less pessimistic about now? Are there any you are now feeling like trying again? I hope so!
Your attitude will have a significant impact on the path of your life. If your attitude is down, it will be hard to have your life move upwards, right? Yes, we’ll all have moments when we feel down, and we want to give up.
Try to hang in and try to hang on. Try to find a new resource, a new method or something, anything, to help you move forward. The results you get from being positive will far outstrip your results while negative. And always keep smiling.
From: Twitter, @EdDeCosta
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/paulharvey121867.html
Photo by Jeff Foust
Happy Birthday to the late, great, Paul Harvey, born 4 September 1918.
