I am an optimist.
No, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am childish or unrealistic with my goals and decisions. Being an optimist just means that I strive to see the good in most situations, no matter how great or terrible they end up being. I tend to look at the world with a pair of rose-colored glasses and thrive on feeling positive emotions (courtesy of the surges of dopamine in my brain).
Optimists like myself tend to have a need to spread the joy that they are feeling and try their best to make everyone feel better because that’s just an instinct. That power of positivity is rarer than one might think, considering all of the issues that have arisen in the past few years. It’s a crazy world and that crazy world needs the positive power of optimists as much as it needs the power of realists and maybe even pessimists (just to balance things out).
However, as happy as optimists can be on most days, they are still human and, unfortunately, every human being has their “bad days.” Optimists can actively try to lock up their negative feelings most of the time, but sometimes that lock can break open and unleash a wave of sadness, low self-confidence, or even anger. Those emotions can create inner chaos in an optimist’s mind and that makes the emotional experience a bit different when compared to non-optimists.
Think about it. As an optimist, every day is supposed to be a great day. You’ve built up an image, a reputation, centered around being happy or at least being cordial with almost everyone. Little annoyances that would usually ruin someone else’s day get easily solved through an optimistic attitude. The outfit that you picked out for the day doesn’t look as good as you thought? Just quickly change a piece or two and voila! Your outfit has been upgraded. Are you stuck in traffic on your way back from school? Oh well, now there's more time to jam out to your loud music in the car! Do you have a busy schedule for the day? Grab some coffee and chug through that “to do” list because you’ve got all day.
The eyes of an optimist see the silver lining in almost everything. Unfortunately, the key word there is almost. There comes a time when something upsetting will come along and it’ll be strong enough break through an optimist’s inner wall of happiness, unleashing a wave of negativity, sadness, anger, and/or low confidence. These emotions, though completely normal to feel at times, feel foreign in an optimist’s brain and the mere thought of experiencing these emotions is unbearable. Yet, they are felt anyway and they can be caused by other everyday things in life: a failing grade on a test that you thought that you aced, the loss of a loved one, a rude comment directly or indirectly said to/about you and/or someone you love, or even a rejection letter.
When feeling sadness, optimists will struggle between acceptance and denial. They think that it’s normal to feel sadness or anger every now and then (with purpose), but they also think that they should hurry up and recover so that they can feel their primary emotion again: happiness. It may seem silly, but once someone has built up an image of themselves to others, it can be difficult to see that person any other way. Moreover, an optimist likes feeling happy and optimistic, so to part with that feeling at all can hurt emotionally.
Fortunately, in truly optimistic fashion, it is possible to recover and feel better after such upsetting experiences. Sadness is only temporary and with the help of others, even optimists can eventually go back to their normal, happy selves. That toppled wall of positivity can be rebuilt again and again if it has to be and negative experiences can be stored away forever.
Spread the joy.
