Post: #1

I read an interesting psychology article that said its possible to become more optimistic by thinking of 3 positive things each day, every day. Just like a skill or building muscle, its possible to improve optimism levels.

Seeing as I'm stuck in Poland's Krakow, with rising rates of obesity/consumerism/etc...I feel pessimistic.

What are some positives?
1. More PUAs in this city, possible to learn game from them
2. It will cause me to appreciate my next town when I leave here
3. ...

Fuck, can't even think of 3 positives but can think of at least 20 negatives.

How do people stay positive? Is optimism just lying to yourself and believing its true?? Has anyone here learned to be optimistic through practice? How did you do it?

Post: #2

Fuck yes.

I used to be a fairly negative, neurotic person, always focusing on the bad instead of the good, complaining about every thing and appreciating very little.

These days I am very, very different.

Optimism is NOT lying to yourself and believing it's true.

Optimism, is this (abridged):
1) Realizing that, to a large part, YOU control how you experience the world via your ATTENTION.
2) Learning to focus your attention on the POSITIVE instead of NEGATIVE aspects of reality.

This is the part that's like a muscle. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

When you are feeling negative, start consciously looking for the positives, and spend time focusing on them. You will get better and better with practice, and over time, will be able to find the positive in almost any situation.

Just as importantly, you must train yourself to avoid spending your limited attention on anything which is beyond your control. If there is nothing you can do about a particular aspect of reality, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME thinking about it. It'll just make you miserable. Instead, focus on that which you can affect.

Here's an easy example:
You are a party. There are 99 ugly girls and 1 hot one.
Pessimist: Look at all these ugly girls (focusing on the negative). What a shitty party. I wish there were more hot girls. This sucks. Life sucks. etc.
Optimist: Oh hey, lets talk to this hot girl (focus on the positive). I'm so glad i went here.

Harder example:
You are at a party. There are 100 feminists at a party. No hot girls. You are stuck there for some amount of time.
Pessimist: Cry, bitch, moan, brood, get into a philosophical argument, etc.
Optimist: Many options!

1) Work on your empathy. Instead of arguing, use the time to get to know an angry lesbian and try to understand how she got to be that way. Maybe she became a lesbian because of bad luck - the first few guys she dated when she was young didn't want her because they were gay, her ego was crushed, and she turned to girls (true story!).
2) Work your social skills. Can you have a long conversation with a few feminists without offending someone? Can you introduce a 'controversial' idea in such a way it it gets genuine consideration instead of a knee-jerk response?
3) Network. Some of these angry feminists might know a few hotties, right?

.. You get the idea.

Optimism isn't about lying. It's about not wasting your emotional energy on useless (negative) thinking, and learning to enjoy life by focusing on the positive things around you.

For more, read 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience'

As for Poland:
3) You are surrounded by sweet, sexy, feminine women that are a nearly extinct species in the western world.

Post: #3

1) You aren't dead.
2) You aren't dying.
3) You don't wish you were either of the above.

I could come up with hundreds in five minutes.

Positive thinking is about conditioning and habit forming. Start with being really obvious: Look outside your window, at the pavement. Do you know how awesome it is that you've got a pavement to walk on? The very fact you can read this and it can conjur those images is pretty awesome in and of itself.

On the one hand, start building these positive associations every time you look around, and then move them inwards.
On the other hand, you really have to analyse why you're pessimistic. So there are some girls getting fat in Poland? Why is that causing you to get in a bad mood? If you need to change it, think how. If you don't need to change it, then there is no problem.

Post: #4

But isn't it important just to realize my location sucks, pack my bags, and leave? At the same time...it might not be as bad as I think and O should give it a shot. Its tough to see what is reality when judgement is clouded O don't want to waste time in a bad locale..my biggest regret is not having left my last home sooner. So, is Optimism a bad thing if it keeps you on the wrong path?

We hear of stories about the guy who spent 10, 20 years as a nobody before making it big as an artist/musician. But what about knowing when to quit, when to go a different way?

For every 1 guy that succeeds, there are a bunch that fail and waste time and effort on a futile pursuit. But there are also those who give up when something was possible, just needed some time ans effort. Where is the right balance between dreams and realism?

Post: #5

(09-22-2012 01:56 PM)Spartan Wrote:  But isn't it important just to realize my location sucks, pack my bags, and leave? At the same time...it might not be as bad as I think and O should give it a shot. Its tough to see what is reality when judgement is clouded O don't want to waste time in a bad locale..my biggest regret is not having left my last home sooner. So, is Optimism a bad thing if it keeps you on the wrong path?

We hear of stories about the guy who spent 10, 20 years as a nobody before making it big as an artist/musician. But what about knowing when to quit, when to go a different way?

For every 1 guy that succeeds, there are a bunch that fail and waste time and effort on a futile pursuit. But there are also those who give up when something was possible, just needed some time ans effort. Where is the right balance between dreams and realism?

What is it you want to be doing right now? That isn't some existential question like 'what to do with my life' or 'should I up and move' it is literally, what would you go and do if I held a gun to your head and told you to get off the computer and do something right now.

So, again: What do you want to do?

Then: Why aren't you doing it?

Then: What steps do you need to overcome the problems above? Do them.

There isn't some huge moral crisis about there being fat, consumerist girls in poland. Either you want them, or you don't. If you do, then there is no problem. If you don't, then find girls you do want, and get them.

If you think you need to go somewhere else, then work out what you want from that place that you can't get in the place you're in. Then, work out how to get it. Then go if you need to.

This is unrelated to optimism in any sense other than the fact that you're overthinking the problem instead of doing what needs to be done.

Post: #6

I'd say optimism is a factor.
There are hot girls here, but I think they are out of my league.

For example, I say hi to a girl, chat about her city for a few, then ask for a phone number. This works in FSU... but poland is intimidating: most of these girls have money to dress well and buy a smartphone, many speak English, they can travel and work in the EU, they are pursued by foreigners and Polish dudes are often well dresssed, funny, good looking.

In FSU I saw lame dudes with hot girls and said to myself "If he can do it, of course I can." In Krakow, I see guys and say "Will I be able to match that?" Sure, its possible to practice and improve game....but I can't change my whole personality, unless its psychosurgery

So the optimistic guy would say: "Yeah, I can do it"
But maybe realism would be to understand limitations and find a different path. Or is that pessimism?

Post: #7

Spartan--

You're missing some important points about optimism; the foundation of the "three things a day" idea is something Martin Seligman calls "explanatory style"--in other words, the stories you tell yourself about WHY things happen. Optimism/pessimism is less about what happens than why you think it happens. Pessimists view bad things as permanent and personal ("we always lose because we just plain suck at basketball") while optimists view bad events as transitory and external ("we lost this time because the other team just played a great game").

This is a skill, and it can be learned. The "3 things a day" exercise is to write down three things each day that went well, AND (this is the important part) WHY THEY WENT WELL. So sure, the world sucks, unemployment is high, whatever--what went well for you TODAY? Pretty girl smiled at me... because I'm attractive. I got overcharged at a store but corrected the bill... because I'm alert and stand up for myself. Whatever. You get the idea.

Touchstone book for this is probably Martin Seligman's "Learned Optimism" but it's an active area of study and the good stuff is a lot more complex than the "just imagine happy thoughts and everything will be better!" crap most self-help books sell.

Post: #8

But my question is, do I want to focus on explanatory style?

For example, people with mild depression are actually more realistic than normal people.

Perhaps better to encourage a negative view if it helps me realize my limitations and find a different path.

For example, many people are able to convince themselves of happiness by changing preferences(see Dan Gilbert TED video). I am really bad at that...I'm either pursuing my goal(girls), directly and 100%, or unhappy. Also, a lot of happiness is about how we compare outselves to others. Living in a city where most men are better is bad from a self-esteem point of view. For example, college students who went to a lower tier uni where they were smarter than the avg kid, were happier.

Look at Winston Wu of Happier abroad. That dude was miserable... and location change was all it too to do better.

Post: #9

Optimism is a choice. If you want to be optimistic, just do it. Instead of focusing on the negative, focus on the positive. What you focus on is what grows. Your attention gives it power.

Didn't Nietzsche say.."What doesn't destroy you makes you stronger". I tend to agree. Anything bad that happens to you also teaches you something. So, what will you focus on, the bad event or the lesson that the bad even taught you? It's your choice. What you focus on will grow. Focus on the bad, you will see more bad. Focus on the good and you will see more good.

Leaders can lead you and teachers can teach you but at some point you have to do it yourself. You have to take responsibility for your own thoughts and not blame the outside world or expect the outside world to fix you. You want optimism, be optimistic!

Control your frame!

Don't let the world control your mind. Take control of your thoughts!

Post: #10

Buy Anthony Robbins "Persona Power II." It's a 30-day program I listened to recently that radically altered my current frame of mind, which was really beginning to take a negative turn. It's had a drastic effect on my current life and the direction thereof. It's like I'm not even the same person as the one I had become.

Anyhow, you can find it on Amazon. The cd set is about $200, but if you have an old casette player lying around (just buy a walkman for cheap), you can get the casette version for about $35.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #11

Spartan--it's a good point that pessimists are actually more accurate at assessing situations. But it's also true that in general optimists are more likely to have more successes. In the language of this community, a pessimist who explained failures with women as permanent/global/personal ("I never successfully close an approach with any woman because I'm unappealing") may more correctly be able to assess his low chances... but a transitory/specific/external optimist ("Well, that last approach crashed and burned because she might have been having a bad day; I'll try again tomorrow") may have exactly the same chances, but is more likely to keep trying and succeeding.

So on balance, it seems to be worth doing. I can say that after trying to intentionally change my outlook post-divorce, I'm enjoying life a lot more (and had people tell me "I just can't even imagine you being sad about anything").

Now, if you're trying something risky--big business decision, something like that, where an honest assessment of the odds is really really important--yes, a more pessimistic view is probably a good idea, and you'd probably want a pessimist on your team. In that case, hire one.

It's also worth noting that unbridled "optimism" (ie underestimating or ignoring the likely required effort) is bad; in a study involving weight loss, subjects were asked what they thought their chances of success were, and also how difficult they thought it would be. Notable correlations between success and "I can do it, but it will be difficult" ... as well as strong correlations between lower weight loss and "I can do it and it'll be easy."

Or, put a different way, pessimism is likely to reduce your chance of failure in just about any enterprise. But given how much one learns through failure and how most breakout successes come after loads of failures, I think a "realistic optimism" outlook is best.

Post: #12

It's true that pessimism is likely to reduce your chance of failure in any particular enterprise, but, as an eternal pessimist, you chance of SUCCESS is nearly zero.

In the game of life, refusing to roll the dice may save you from some difficulty and struggle, but it will never, ever make you a winner.

On the other hand, if you keep trying, even if you keep failing for a while, you will learn, grow, understand that these failures are rarely as big a deal as they seem, and will, eventually, succeed.

Although it probably has its use in communist china, pessimism (and general risk aversion) is a sub-optimal life strategy for the individual.