One more trip around the sun or one less summer to live

I took a quiz last week with some friends. It was from a book, seemingly competent and researched. It was believable. But for the gullible, it’s finding things that aren’t believable that’s the problem. Anyway, this book was about optimism and the movement towards optimism. The quiz assured me that I’m a pessimist, and, well…it was right. I was loathe to admit it, but I spend most of my time worrying about something that will never happen, being anxious about my safety and comfort when all is secure, always looking for something to fear. According to this book, my brand of pessimism (and maybe all brands) is based on two key factors: When something ‘bad’ happens, I tend to internalize too much of that responsibility and when something ‘good’ happens, I tend to displace too much of that responsibility. The dishwasher breaking is my fault, but me fixing it was luck. See?

Now, I hate to admit this, that I was a pessimist, but I guess that’s the first step in getting over it, right? Hollywood has taught me that there are many steps to recovery and the first of which is acceptance. I get most of my day-to-day information from Hollywood, but I reckon that’s more common these days than before. And maybe that’s where my pessimism comes from too–movies, sitcoms, the news are rarely based on beautiful things, and although they are usually resolved in the end (except for the news) I didn’t internalize that part and have lived in a state of low-level crisis for…well, for a long time.

Before acceptance, I would rationalize my pessimism as realism. I mean, the world really is going to shit, right? I guess that question is too big to be able to answer from our simple little human bodies and our limited personal perspectives. I could rationalize my pessimisms, my bad moods, my gloomy future and say, that according to all known calculations, life sucks and it’s going to keep on sucking right up to the end. In my family, it was common to say and to hear, ‘life’s a bitch and then you die.” I was ready to go on believing this, ready to follow this phrase to the grave, but damnit! THAT sucks.

In all my travels, and in my tribulations, in the trials and in the trees, I’ve learned that most of the time, reality is flexible, that it’s never as solid as we usually think it to be. We have much more influence on the way things turn out, the way things are than we let ourselves know. And how we interpret life around us, what we project out onto the future goes a long way to defining. In my experience it’s been hard. I’m so attached to my pessimism, to my worry and anxiety that I don’t want to let them go. A voice in my head argues incessantly for the continuation of this really stupid way of going about life. Wouldn’t it be great to wake up in the morning and just know that some beautiful things were going to happen?

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and complete my 32 rotation around the sun aboard Starship Earth and I’m going to have a wonderful day. 30 didn’t feel old, neither did 31, but that nag inside is trying to tell me that I should’ve done something by now, that I should’ve, I don’t know won the lottery? Written the greatest American novel of all time? Bought a house? Had a kid? Friends and family are settling and multiplying so I guess it’s normal to feel like I should be somewhere else than where I am. Or is that just the pessimism? Don’t get me wrong, I am making progress. I am moving forward in lots of ways, just not nearly fast enough for this long-time adrenalin junky.

So for my birthday, I’m giving myself sunshine, bright hopes, and strong determined healthy action. I am moving forward. I am looking on the bright side. I am smiling and laughing–I am going to be fucking ecstatic!

Who’s coming with me?

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