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I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier, but I have a little something to add to the discussion about negative thinking patterns and choice.
I have an 8-year-old who can be exasperatingly negative and fatalistic. Her father, whom she hasn't been around at all for almost three years now was also exasperatingly negative and fatalistic (he has since been diagnosed with having bi-polar disorder). His mother, one sister and at least one aunt that I know of are also exasperatingly negative and fatalistic. Now knowing what I have told you here, can anyone say with absolute assuredness that my eight-year-old daughter is making a choice to be negative? I know. I deal with it every day and I say that NO it isn't.
We shouldn't be so quick to judge people because they have to struggle with what comes (relatively) easily to us. Every day I am trying to coach my daughter into not defaulting to the negative. For some people it just doesn't work that way.
And why should it? Why all this stress on being upbeat and positive?
When you really think about, what we might consider 'negative' thinking has spawned some of the most compelling works of art and literature in the history of mankind. Maybe we're supposed to be this way. Different and all.
Just some random thoughts...
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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