When you encounter unexpected setbacks and difficulties, how do you react? Do you immediately get upset or discouraged? Or do you seek the valuable lesson in every setback? The way we handle the issues in our lives help us form a view. In fact, every choice and decision we make helps form that view. Why not let it be a positive one? Some people refuse to see the good, although it makes life less stressful and more enjoyable.

When something in my life is a struggle or doesn’t go the way I want it to, I don’t always have a plan on how to get through it but I always have a destination. With no fear that I won’t get there. Facing the problem is head on, realizing that what ever I have to deal with will help me learn something.

Optimists seem to have different ways of dealing with the world that set them apart from the average. When something happens that should upset me or hold me back, I don’t let it affect me in any way but positive. Not letting the issue consume me, but taking it for what it is. Optimism is a trait that should become more common, judging by Winston Churchill’s famous quote that “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Research indicates that optimists and pessimists approach problems differently, and their ability to cope successfully with adversity differs as a result.

Recently I have taken a great interest in positive psychology, learning more about why I am able to have this view on the world like nothing bad will ever happen, not because I’m less likely to be affected then anyone else but because I have a different understanding. No matter what happens, I think I can handle it. Positive psychology proposes that if we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average. The next step to not let what is around us effect the way we make decisions. Your external world is not predicted by happiness. Only 10 percent is affected by the outside world; 90 percent is the way your brain processes the world. We can be as happy as we allow ourselves to be.