Optimistically learning optimism.

The word "optimism" intrigues my curiosity faculties and I wonder where do I belong?? Do I belong in the optimists lot or the anti-optimists(pessimist) lot ?? I try and think of situations and my reactions to them, which would help me to conclude on the point. But they seem to worsen the problem in hand. Instead of helping me figure out which club do I belong in, they seem to tear me between the two extremities of optimism and pessimism. But the question is what do I advocate??? Hmmm either this or that??

Audience poll!!! :P  Looks like most of them believe optimism is the way to go:)) Okay, positive should be the outlook but what would lead me there??

The supposed answer is "Learned Optimism", proposed by Dr.Martin Selignman, the father of Positive Psychology.

Learned optimism is the idea in positive psychology that a talent for joy, like any other, can be cultivated. Learning optimism is done by consciously challenging any negative self talk. So, pessimist or and moderately optimistic person can learn optimism through the following ABCDE of Learned Optimism as proposed by Dr.Selignman.

ABCDE of Learned Optimism:

A->Adversity: This is an event that occurs. Eg: You fall sick on the day of your exam.

B->Belief: How you interpret the event. Eg: How unfair!! All my effort went in vain :(

C->Consequence: How you react based on your beliefs. Eg: My grades are ruined. It won’t help even if I do the papers well.

Keep a journal of such adversities, beliefs and consequences for some time. Then move on to the D & E of learned optimism after studying your behavior patterns.

D->Disputation: Now combat the negative thought with a positive one. Eg: I will make up my grades in other papers. It is reasonably good considering the situation.

E->Energisation: Now its celebration time, as you have successfully learned to lessen the burden of guilt on your shoulders with learned optimism.

And, if the term learned optimism sounds funny, I would like to quote Alvin Toffler who famously said, “The illiterate of the 21st century, will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." So, let us be literates and lets learn, unlearn and relearn with optimism.

From the nobel laureates study :)

Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

This a personal favourite from the Geetanjali. I love the way freedom of thought is emphasized.

Dont be fooled by me

Hey people check this out!!! This a poem by Charles C. Finn, as read by Roscoe on WBAI, April 1967. I loved it!! So passed on. Hope it is worth the read:) 

Please don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression I'm secure and that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name, coolness my game, that water is calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me, please don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth, but my surface is a mask--my every varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath it dwells the real confusion, fear and aloneness. Beneath lies my smugness, my complacently, but I hide this--I don't want anyone to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That's why I frantically created a mask to hide behind-- nonchalant sophisticated facades to help me pretend-- to shield me from the glance that knows-- but such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation and I know it. That is if it's followed by acceptance. If it's followed by love, it's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self built prison walls and from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I'm really worth while, but I don't tell you this, I don't dare--I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me and you'll laugh and your laugh will kill me. I'm afraid that deep down, I'm nothing and that I'm just no good and that you'll see this and reject me.

So I play my game; my desperate pretending; with the facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I idle chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's everything and what's crying within me.

So when I'm through going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying--what I'd like to be able to say, but for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

I dislike hiding, honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the superficial phony game. I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me, you've got to hold out your hand, even when it's the last thing I seem to want or need.

You can help wipe away from my eyes--the blank stare of grieving dead. You can help call me into aliveness each time you're kind, gentle and encouraging. Each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.

Iif you choose to, please choose to. You can help break down the wall behind which I tremble. You can encourage me to remove my mask. You can help release me from my shadowed world of panic and uncertainty. From my lonely prison.

So do not pass me by-- please don't pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A lone conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what books say about man, I am irrational, I fight against the very things that I cry out for, but I am told love is stronger than strong walls. In this lies my hope, my only hope, please help beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands--for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every women you meet.

A native American prayer

I give you this one thought to keep - 
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft starts that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone - 
I am with you still in each new dawn.



This is something I found while googling. Found it beautiful. So thought of sharing it:)

A tale of love

The sand on the seashore, sits like a snow white.
Waiting for her prince charming to come and hug her tight.
Waving at her, with his arms wide open there comes her knight,
Embracing her, he tenderly whispers in her ears, I will be back love, take care, alright.

As he retreats, he takes her with him.
Towards him, remains fixed her gaze
Towards her, is always his race
Ah!! what a tale of love,
They meet, they depart, but they reign each others heart.

The daisy that bloomed..

Once upon a time, there was a a daisy plant. As it was the flowering season, there were two buds in the plant. They had survived the garden owner's year old son's plucking attempts. They spoke to each other of the notorious huge one who only smiled and sometimes wailed. "Oh, dear lord," they said, "why did have to put us here, if we had a monster to fear. Living is tough, when the physically stronger beings are rough."


In a day, they had tiny in size but major trouble. The latter monster didn't pluck but gradually ate into the one of the buds. The bud wailed in pain. Only the other bud would understand the language . She couldnt help. She said, "Be strong. I will offer you my prayers. Oh holy lord, why did you have to put her through this. She is such a little miss." As an answer the to her prayers, the garden owner sprayed pesticides the next day. They smelt caustic. They little nostrils were overwhelmed. But life is far more important than a feeling. They endured with grace. But the garden owners  attempt was not quick enough to save the bud. She dried and died a slow death. However the pest was dead as well.

The other bud all alone now. She cried her sorrows, wiped her own tears. Pledged she would not bloom, for the lord had made her all alone. She didn't see a meaning in  her life. For the deceased bud was her only mate and now she had lost her too. Nobody understood her now. She had no peers to share her fears. She wished the huge monster would pluck her and end her misery. But time and tide waits for none. Her petals grew bigger that they couldn't hold themselves. They had to break free. The innocent petals then bloomed and opened themselves to theinfinite  world. The bud told," oh dear lord, you are being so unfair, for my will you never care, I have had enough of your goodness share".

She suddenly heard somebody talk. She had never heard anything but unintelligible human nuisance since her friend departed. But today she heard a rather sweet voice that blended itself in the breeze that blew. Yet it was strong, strong enough to reach her. Mild enough to touch her heart. She fell in love with the bee. He spoke to her in her own tongue. She had finally diverted from her sorrows to the the world of magic. Life is no wonder a delicious ambiguity. The next day, she hoped that the huge monster didn't appear to ruin her petals. She prayed " oh dear lord, forgive me for I doubted you, for everything you take there is much more you give."  She heard the hum of her beloved and there she was on cloud nine, because he had come, the one spoke her tongue, the one who told her the world was a beautiful place though she had found herown reason to think it was.

He told her of his floral flights, of more beautiful flowers which made her jealous. But he seemed normal when he spoke of them. He never spoke of them woth special interest. This made her feel better but neither did he pay her special atention.  She observed he did his job with a detachment.It was his job as it was hers to bloom. They each had a task. Their tasks were complimentary. They were meant to meet for a reason.

She had heard from him that they together as a team create many flowers like her own. Their task was of higher purpose than their individual tasks. They were the link in the design of the creator. There in his words she realized what she was honored with. She was honored with the best gift the creator could bestow on anybody. She was honored with life. She was honored with a opportunity to change. To create beautiful gardens she may never be able to see. To curve the lips of millions into beautiful smiles she may never interpret. To be at occasions which celebrate, which mourn, beyond caste, creed, nationalities. She was honored to be a daisy. Then onwards everyday she kept head high, breathed her lungs full, smiled till her cheeks ached spreading her petals, opened herself to the sun that shined, for now she had known her reason, her reason to bloom.
And when she left, this was all she had to offer to the generation next.
Her life's experience was packed into the words," Fear not when life doesn't turnout the way you plan. Because all I have known is he has better plans than I have coz he is a magnificent planner than I am. "

Best book dedication quote I have come across till date

“Grow strong, my comrade … that you may stand
Unshaken when I fall; that I may know
the shattered fragments of my song will come
at last to finer melody in you;
That I may tell my heart that you begin
where passing I leave off, and fathom more.”

—	Will Durant, under the dedication of The Story of Philosophy to his wife