Optimism

I don't usually blog at work, but I don't think any colleagues read this, so I think I'm safe...

October is a crazy busy time of year for me at work. It's the same every year - planning a week's worth of training programs, getting the attorneys to do their evaluations, projecting headcount figures and part of the budget for next year. All the while distracted by what the kids and Mark and I will be for Halloween.

Yet every October, I start out thinking that "it's not going to be that stressful, tiring, that much work this year." Maybe because I've been doing these same tasks every October for at least the past 5 years and think that it's mostly routine - yet it always is as stressful, tiring and as much (or more) work as the year before, and the year before that... Still, I can't help but go into it with a sense of optimism.

Because I'm an optimist. If something bad happens, my immediate reaction is: "Okay, what's going to make it better? Not..."oh my God, this is the worst possible thing." I believe that bad thing cannot be the focus, because it will be fed by my negative thoughts and become a stronger bad thing. So my focus instead is on what will make it better.

Some people think that is unrealistic - that it is just my way of not facing reality - that this bad thing is there, and the possibility of it getting worse is very real, and what if that worse thing does happen? I know that. I realize that bad things do get worse. And if that bad thing gets worse, I'll face it when it does. But in the meantime, my energy is focused on believing it will get better. Because that does happen too. In my 38+ years of life, I've learned that some bad things get worse, and some get better. So I make the choice to focus my energy on the possible better, not the possible worse.

So next October will inevitably come, and I'll go into it thinking, this year will not be that bad. And I might be wrong. But I believe that someday, I'll be right.