Positive Attitude!

[Jester]

For a long time I've been focusing on having a positive attitude about life, and life has just gotten better for me because of it. On that note, a few things have happened recently that showcased that.

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with my parents, and while I was talking to my stepfather, he asked the usual, "So how are things with you lately?" or something along those lines. Quite cheerfully, I answered, "Oh, nothing major new, but life is good. I can't really complain." This apparently threw him slightly, based upon his response: "Well, it's nice to talk to someone with such a positive attitude for a change." And I don't consider either him or my stepbrother to have negative outlooks, but he had a point....people bitch. About a lot.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was behind the bar, doing my thang, and was talking to a couple of tourists. They asked a couple of questions about Key West, this being their first time here, and after answering them to the best of my ability, I asked if they had any other questions, as I often do. And that's when the young lady threw me a curve ball. "Best bartender advice?" Huh? Talk about a random left field generic question. At first I did not know if she meant best advice from a bartender about Key West, or best advice about being a bartender, or just generally best advice from a bartender. As it turns out, she meant the last one. I was kinda stumped, and didn't know what she was looking for. "You know...life advice, I guess." Oh, well, in that case, I told them, my best advice was to not let little shit and life's problems get you down, but to generally have a good and positive attitude. I commented on how so many people in life always seem to have so much drama in their lives, and they let it drive them crazy. And it's always the same people. My thoughts were that those people don't really have more drama than the rest of us, overall, but they just let it get to them more, and they highlight it by focusing more on it than others. I have drama in my life too, and negative things happen in it, but I don't usually let it get me down, and when I do I don't for long, and I focus on the positive.

Shortly after this exchange, I managed to accidentally break a pint glass in my right hand, slicing my thumb pretty badly. It was a bleeder. I immediately ran it under water, applied pressure to it with some napkins, and alerted the manager to the incident, and also had him apply bandages on it. And then put on a glove over the bandages, and wore the glove the rest of my shift, for the protection of my guests. Shortly after that all went down, I was laughing and joking with my guests, and even said to the above couple, "Well, I certainly didn't mean to illustrate my point so violently!" Because a lot of people would have focused on, "FUCK! That hurt! And now my right thumb is all sliced up, and if have tomorrow off and have to do a lot of shit, including packing for my vacation." Me? My basic philosophy was more along the lines of, "Fuck that hurt! But at least I only have a couple of hours left in my shift, and I have tomorrow off so I don't have to deal with this at work, and then I just have two shifts left before vacation!" Same incident, same situation, two completely different outlooks.

Rewind to a week or two ago. I was giving my friend Little Red a ride to work, for various reasons. Her tool of a boyfriend had just left town a few weeks earlier, ostensibly to take care of some legal troubles back in the Midwest, but as he had taken everything with him, even his favorite lamp, Red was pretty sure he wasn't coming back. And eventually realized that I and her father were probably right that this was, in the end, better for her. But that left her dealing with rent on her own. And just a day or two before I chauffeured her downtown, her place being on just about the furthest point of the island from both her downtown jobs, and her being without a vehicle beyond a bicycle, she had found out that her roommate, who held the lease, was not renewing it, and she would have to find a new place to live. And she was bitching and moaning, because she knew from experience that finding a place within her budget was tough, but even tougher for her due to her having a large dog. (A Husky/Chow mix who is absolutely adorable.) And despite Key West being a generally dog friendly town, many places do not allow large dogs.

So there Little Red is, bitching up a storm, woe-is-me-ing it, and I finally interrupted. Quietly and calmly I told her she needed to have a more positive attitude. Rather than having her self-defeating attitude, she needed to be more positive. No more, "Fuck, there's no way I'm gonna find a place!" Rather, "Okay, I'm gonna find a place, damn it!" She basically rolled her eyes at me, but I continued to beat my positive drum.

That night at work, she found out about a place for rent, downtown, that would allow her dog, that was within her budget, that would enable he to easily ride her bike or even walk to both of her jobs, that would eliminate her reliance on public buses and taxi cabs, and that was with a person that a mutual friend of ours had roomed with previously, and whom this mutual friend said was definitely a good egg.

Do I believe my positive attitude somehow magically made this place appear? No. But I'd like to think that my chiseling away at her negative armor made her more open to asking around and listening to people, and having them listen to her, rather than being a little negative drama queen and not hearing what is going on, and having others write her off as a little negative drama queen that they didn't want to help.

Now, I know this kind of advice does not bear on people who are clinically depressed or bipolar. I am not a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist. I have no mental health training, and I don't delude myself into believing that merely having a more positive outlook automatically erases life's ills and makes things better. As I said, I still have problems in my life, many of them that I probably could have avoided, to be honest. But rather than letting most of them get me down, I use them as learning experiences or laugh them off as the idiocy and insanity of my life. And those few that really do get me down, don't do so for very long. And I firmly believe, and have seen with my own eyes, that for most people, such a more positive outlook on life and attitude in general is healthier and, let's face it, more pleasant to live with.

Some people are always going to be determined to be miserable. I will not be one of them. I only hope that more people join me, including some of you.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I try to live my life by that same attitude-- have a positive outlook, and not let the dramas of life keep you down.

Life's too short to be a miserable cuss all the time.

[Kittish]

You make some wonderful points Jester. *giggle* I try to look for bright spots in everything. I mean, whatever it is, it could be worse. Drives my boyfriend crazy sometimes, but he does admit that I am correct.

There is another change to basic outlook that kind of ties in with the whole thinking positive. Doesn't seem an obvious connection, but it all has to do with HOW you think about stuff, which affects and reflects your basic attitudes.

Goes like this: You have, say a beer. You set it down. When you go to pick it back up again, you can't find it. Most people at this point are saying, either out loud or to themselves "who took my beer?!" I say, either out loud or to myself "where did I put my beer?" One thing I've noticed over the years since training myself to think the second way is that I don't try nearly as much to assign blame to others for stuff that happens. If it's my own damn fault, it's easier for me to own it and deal with it, if it's just a case of 'shit happens' it's easier for me to clean it up and move on, and if it really truly IS someone else's fault, I react appropriately to the situation. Minus a whole lotta screaming hysterics.

[Jester]

There is yet another aspect to this, and it involves negative shit in life. But first, some background, in the form of a story I've told many times over the years, and have probably mentioned a few times on this very site. To wit:

First day of seventh grade, in a new school and town for me. I get to science class, with a teacher I would have for science for both seventh and eighth grade, Mr. Bendoritis. (Or Mr. Bendo as we called him.) Nervous, shy, and skinny little seventh grader (me!) looking around with no idea what to expect on this first day of science and first day of junior high school. Science was one of the earlier periods, so I was still getting my feet wet, as it were.

Mr. Bendo walks in, a big, bearded, imposing man with a deep voice and a very calm demeanor. The kind of teacher that immediately demanded obedience from almost every student, from either fear, respect, or a combination thereof. Also the kind of teacher who referred to everyone by their formal title and last name, i.e., "Mr. Smith." After the initial formalities like roll call and such, the first words out of Mr. Bendo's mouth were, "Every day of your life, you learn something new." Most of the students, myself included, had the basic attitude of "Yeah, yeah, whatever Teach." More of the usual adult garbage that was meaningless.

Then Mr. Bendo launched into the lesson. Don't ask me what it was, I don't remember. Probably biology of some sort, though I can't swear to that. Anyway, he goes through the lesson, and as class is getting near the end, he asks, "What did you learn today?" And it was not a rhetorical question. He went around and polled each student. "What did you learn today?" And each student, in turn, told him some fact or scientific theory or some such that had been part or the lesson. And as this goes on longer and longer, it dawns on me that the other students are taking all my answers. Those bastards! And Mr. Bendo went to every other student before he got to me, by which point there was nothing left that he had taught in the lesson that one student or another had not already said. I was, as they say, fucked.

And then it was my turn. "Mr. Dude, what did you learn today?" Oh, shit! I had nothing. Simply nothing. So I did what I did for a large portion of my academic career, especially on book reports and essays, both before and since Mr. Bendoritis's class: I bullshitted: "Well, Mr. Bendoritis, today I learned that every day of my life I learn something new." I fully expected to be called out for my BS answer, which certainly showed that I hadn't really paid attention to the lesson. I expected to be called lazy and a daydreamer, something I'd been called many times before by many teachers, and often justifiably so. The one thing I did not expect was what actually happened next. Which came with the force of a thunderclap:

"THAT'S what I'm talking about! THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is the point I most wanted to get across to you today. Thank you, Mr. Dude." And 30 pairs of 12- and 13- year old eyes turned to stare at me, though none were more shocked at the situation than I was.

But it didn't just shock me. It made a profound impact on me. I thought about that moment, and over the next few days, weeks, and months of junior high, and then the following years and decades of my life, I've never forgotten that moment. And that was in the fall of 1982! And here it is, 32 years later, and I still remember it, still think about it, still talk about it, and still apply it to my life. Not just in good times, but perhaps even more so in bad times. Because I treat the bad things that happen to me as a learning experience, something I learn new things from each time. ("Every day of your life, you learn something new.")

Examples: That Vile Woman was the worst girlfriend I've ever had, and the first that made me understand how someone so in love with someone else could come to loathe that other person. Prior to her, I did not understand how such a thing was really possible, despite the numerous instances of it I'd seen with my own eyes, happening to other people, both friends and strangers. The Brit broke my heart, but I learned from it, and grew stronger. Looking back, I realize that I learned from and grew stronger from my experiences with and reactions to bullying I received. (Lessons I dare say many paramours of my nieces probably wish I'd never learned.) Even things as horrible and tragic as the deaths of friends and relatives, even my father, I have learned from, in many various ways.

Did I enjoy all those lessons? No. Did I realize they were lessons at the time? Often not. But I learned from all of them, and grew from all of them.

And today I am, to be totally honest, one of the happiest people I know.

Thank you, Mr. Bendoritis. Lesson learned.

[Sapphire Silk]

My therapy when I was being treated for depression focused a lot on positive affirmations, with a healthy focus on identifying and fixing the problems in my life.

It worked. Five years later and I'm still not on medication, I feel much happier, I have more friends, a more active social life, I'm losing weight and living healthier, and I'm making plans for my future.

[MoonCat]

so many people in life always seem to have so much drama in their lives, and they let it drive them crazy.

Jester, if you lived up here I'd point a certain blood relative in your direction and tell her to "Don't say anything, just LISTEN to the man."

But then, I couldn't do that to you.

[Jester]

Show her my posts here.

[MoonCat]

Show her my posts here.

She'd say, "What's that got to do with me?"

Some people really don't think they're that negative, they really do think that everybody else is just that stupid and annoying so they just can't help being irritated all the time. It's sad.

[Jester]

If that's the case, MC, my talking to her would have the exact same effect.

[Gizmo]

She'd say, "What's that got to do with me?"

Some people really don't think they're that negative, they really do think that everybody else is just that stupid and annoying so they just can't help being irritated all the time. It's sad.

If that's the case, MC, my talking to her would have the exact same effect.

Yep and Yep. Someone has got close to my "I'll tell you all the things you don't want to hear and loudly" point time and time again because of this.

Has a "bad day" because others are in a mood when its her thats been snapping left right and centre, the lot...

[Kal]

Pretty much the same attitude I cultivate in myself (and try to pass on to my kids). Part of it's stolen from Pratchett's Didactylos, "Things just happen, what the hell" (translates for me as "you can't stop bad things happening sometimes") and the rest is about the way you respond to the event during and after it.
I remember reading somewhere about a study that someone did on lucky and unlucky people (self-differentiated groups). If you view yourself as being unlucky then you tend to miss opportunities and chances that the lucky ones would catch - you'll be too focussed on what you expect to happen and closed off to anything else. One thing that stuck with me was about a lucky guy who fell down a flight of stairs, breaking a leg, and viewed himself as even luckier than before. After all, he might have broken his neck.
Even found a link to the article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-to-learn.html - eleven years ago it turns out since I read that and it's stuck with me all this time.

[MoonCat]

Has a "bad day" because others are in a mood when its her thats been snapping left right and centre, the lot...

Yeah, that's part of it. Well, I can't change other people, I can only change myself.

[JustaCashier]

Jester, Around 12 years before you, I was the shy, scrawny little shit of a kid, going to Junior High for the first time, new town, new school.

I had attended K-5 at an elementary school in the largest city in our state, and then when Dad remarried a couple years after Mom died, we moved to a more small town/rural-ish area, in the same general area of our state, but "across the water" I attended 6th at the small town elementary of our new home. I then attended 7-9 at the local Jr. High, and although I probably knew some kids from the elementary school that were there, there would been others from at least one other local elementary. [/backstory]

So, 1st day in P.E. class, the teacher said something like; "....when you come back on Monday, you will need to be wearing a white T-shirt, white gym shorts, white tennis shoes, and a jock strap."

Guess who did this: "What's a 'jock strap?'"

Yup.

Laughter echoes throughout the gym.

Also, come Monday, I was the only one (IIRC) wearing the required white T, shorts, etc. All the other guys were in jeans. I felt pretty stupid, probably still stinging from "what's a jock strap?" as I tried to keep my balance on a board balanced on a cylinder, my scrawny ass legs flopping around in the wide leg openings of the shorts.


As far as remaining positive, I have always tried to do that as well. At least as an adult, as I don't really recall if I felt such through childhood. Although, even though I had lost Mom, Dad, and Step-Mom separately over the years by the time I was a couple months past 15, and lost several others close to me by the time I was 25, or so, dealt with being bullied, self-confidence issues, etc, etc throughout the school years, one thing I recall as far back as being a young kid, was that for all the crap life had dealt me, there were many others the world over dealing with equal, or much worse shit.

Due to a job loss in 2008, related to an extensive hospital stay that Summer (plus 3 months home recovery, I became Homeless for 19 months during 2011-2012, after not being able to find another job, and then unemployment eventually running out. Part of it was in a tent encampment, part of it indoors in transitional housing.

It was tough giving up most of my possessions that had been acquired over my life, some of it truly sentimental, other stuff I realized wasn't sentimental after all, just that I'd "always" had it.

But, I felt relieved to be able to join this tent encampment, that from what relatively little I knew about it, I at least knew it was organized, had rules and responsibilities, and was relatively safe.

Throughout my stay there, I had some non-homeless friends, and others in the community that "knew" me from a local internet site, helping to make sure my needs were being met as well as possible, and many of them were helping the Camp in general, and continued to do so after I moved out and started working toward the transitional housing, after 2 back-to-back, month apart bouts of pneumonia and related hospitalizations.

I look back on all of that, and yeah, it sucked. BUT, I had that support network of friends. Not everybody is so lucky.

I don't have mental health issues, (other than mild/situational depression) which is rather common among the homeless. I didn't have addiction issues. I wasn't a Veteran who had been sent to the frontlines in another country coming back physically and/or mentally fucked up. Sometimes these issues are interrelated.

Thanks to the pneumonia, I got back into getting multiple chronic health issues readdressed and back under control.

So, yeah, kind of a sucky year and a half plus there, but instead of dwelling on the negative aspects that affected me, I try to focus on how far I have come, since being re-Homed, and now have become somewhat of an advocate for the Homeless.

My health issues prevent me from getting out there and pounding the pavement to advocate on a regular basis, but I can speak out via the internet, and hope it has some positive impact.

Mike

[sms001]

but I can speak out via the internet, and hope it has some positive impact.

Well, it sure did today. Thanks for sharing your story.

[Jester]

Recent examples of this:

While at NASA's Kennedy Space Center with my niece, I paid for our tickets using one of the self-help kiosks. The transaction went through, my credit card was approved, I took my receipt, and we approached the entrance, pausing for a few pictures with the big NASA sign. After a few minutes, we got to the turnstile to enter, and I presented my receipt from the kiosk. At which point the attendant informed me that that was merely my receipt, and that I should have grabbed our tickets from the kiosk after it printed my receipt. Wait, what. WHAT?!? Oh, crap! Normally, once the realization of what she was saying sank in, I would have SPRANG into action and made a mad dash full speed SPRINT back to the kiosk. But that day, after apparently sleeping funny on my niece's sleeper sofa, my knee was all screwed up, and I was neither springing nor sprinting. But before I could hobble back to the kiosk, the attendant directed me to Customer Service, directly behind us, where they could tell if someone had already used our forgotten tix. As it turned out, the lovely young woman at Customer Service informed us that our tix had as yet been unused, and she would simply print us new ones.

Many people would have bitched about the whole situation, other to the employees or to themselves or to their friends. Positive Attitude: no one used our tix, and we paid no extra, and I got to interact with a beautiful young lady.

Monday I was helping a friend move a lot of her stuff from a storage unit to her new place. Early on in the unloading phase at her place, it started to rain. I immediately closed the gate on the U-Haul to keep what was there dry, and took a beer break while my friend continued to sort through her stuff inside. Did the rain suck? Sure. Positive Attitude: it could have rained while we were emptying the storage unit into the truck, at which point we could have done nothing but hide out in the truck's front cabin and wait for the rain to subside. As it happened during the second phase of the project, she was able to take care of some sorting inside, and I got a beer break.

Later the same day, while lifting a dresser to bring it from the truck into the house, things went sideways and the dresser basically punched me in the nose. I went down hard with a yell. Because, well, I had just gotten punched in the nose! Friend: "Are you okay?" Me: "NO!" Friend: "Will you be okay?" Me: "Yes! Just leave me alone for a few minutes. Take a break." Positive Attitude: it was just a bruise, no bloody nose or broken nose. It could have been much worse.

A while back, my bar had a special dinner planned for one of Key West's frequent special events. Towards said dinner, the bar ordered a bunch of specialty beer that we don't normally stock. For various reasons unimportant to this thread, management cancelled said event, towards which I had personally done much work. I was less than happy. But.....Positive Attitude: knowing that much of the beer was stuff we didn't regularly sell, stuff we didn't really have room for, and stuff that was unlikely to sell all that well at our bar for various reasons, I approached the bar manager and asked about buying one of the specialty beers for my own personal use. He agreed. Two cases of one of my favorite beers, at cost! Sweet! Negative aspect: he still has not been able to find the invoice, and has not heard back from the beer rep, so he has not been able to tell me how much the beer will actually run me. Positive Attitude: unless something weaselly and unforeseen happens, at some point I WILL still get that beer!

A couple weeks ago, I found myself sitting at the bar talking beer with a lovely young lady, intelligent, witty, and a fan of and knowledgable about beer....and very easy on the eyes, definitely my type. We talked for a good 15-20 minutes. And then she ripped the f bomb: "my fiancée." Well, shit. I could, of course, bemoan my luck. And perhaps I did, a bit. But....Positive Attitude: I had a lovely conversation about one of my favorite things with an attractive and intelligent woman, when otherwise that time would have been spent just sitting at the bar alone, drinking beer and watching sports. And I got to make a joke of it on Facebook.

While up on the mainland a couple months ago for my friend's bachelor party, we were day drinking at this one bar, and there was this one idiot being a nuisance to us and a royal pain in the ass to the bartenders. Positive Attitude: since I was not working and was not in a place where anyone knew where I worked, I was able to tell said idiot exactly what I thought of him without holding back. The bartenders loved it, and my friends thought it as hilarious.

Same bachelor party road trip: one of our party was being a drunken annoying asswipe the whole trip. Surprisingly to the groom and myself, it was neither the groom nor myself. On the way back, Drunken Asswipe swore up and down that, since he had gone to college in the area we were in, he knew exactly where this one bar was. He....did not. And we drove around for a bit, and the fact that he didn't know what he was talking about became clearer and clearer. (As it turned out, he was about 10-15 miles off the mark. So much for knowing the area.) But, quite by accident, we found a great little diner (with booze!) for lunch, and when pulling in there, we came across a little car dealership behind it that had 9 (NINE!) DeLoreans parked in its lot. Positive Attitude: despite his drunken ineptitude, we still found a great place to eat, and nine freakin' DeLoreans. Not something that happens every day.

My point stands.