Life can be viewed in three ways. It could be seen through rose tinted glasses, or by monochrome glasses or simply by the normal ones. Going by the first way, people tend to romanticize and fantasize endlessly about life and its offerings. If being viewed by the monochromic perspective, one would never get to see the colors that life actually has to offer and will only stick to the monotony that it weaves. People who have been viewing life from these two perspectives are more likely to find themselves in troubles from which they will not be able to rescue themselves given the lack of their vision and true understanding of life. They would at last turn into pessimists reverberating how life has been unfair to them, whereas it was their basic understanding of it that cheated on them. The third lot of people would be comparatively stable for they do understand life with its power to destroy as well as its infinite power to bliss. They are better off than the first two. The situation for a pessimist worsens as and when they start viewing their life as nothing but a bed of thorns which is not true. If you are one, then read the following tips and learn to control your negative thoughts, before it robs you off your ability to smile ever again.
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Mistakes happen
It is high time that you realize the fact that mistakes happen all the time even by the best of people. You are no Godlike figure that you would manage to refrain from doing anything wrong all your life. Even if you did something which was not righteous, all you ought to do is realize that it was a fault which is not meant to be repeated. That is it. Full stop. Sitting and brooding over the how’s and why’s of your folly would bring you immense harm. That would shut you out from the right things going on around you and in your life. You’d need to stop focusing on the negatives.
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Learn to appreciate
Ever saw a toddler’s first step? Isn’t that one thing worth all the appreciation in the world? What is holding you back is your inability to praise and appreciate all things beautiful. You have been so used over fussing and criticizing that you have long forgotten how appreciating and admiring things and people in life really feels like. Once you learn to do that you’d see that there is so much more to life that you had been skipping on before. That would be some delightful reawakening.
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Past is past
Stop intermingling your experiences from the past with your present and future prospects. There can be no reason good enough ever to bring harm to your present for it is all that counts and matters. Past experiences, be it good or bad, are meant to be learned from, not obsess with and construct the rest of your life over its basis. You would be missing on your chances to have a happy and optimistic life if all that you ever think about is your unfortunate and tragic experiences from your past. Treat it like some other lifetime and forget it. It is definitely not an easy task but is worth a shot given that it is your happiness at stake.
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People cannot be categorized
Some are mean and some are kind. Yet, nobody is completely mean and completely kind. You cannot put people into broad categories and on discovering traits of other categories in them, start developing hatred or disliking for them. That will be unjust to them as well as yourself. You might have expected your boyfriend to stand by you in your weak moment but he ducked out the moment you needed him the most. That will not make him an unkind fellow for it is not that makes him completely. Once you realize that people are nothing but amalgam of good and not so good traits, dealing with everyone around would become easier. You’d slowly see that there was no such reason to hold on to that pessimistic attitude about people.
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Move two steps ahead
What you need is a reversal of your perspective. Optimism is exactly the opposite of pessimism- at least that is what the grammar books say. Whereas it is two steps ahead of pessimism. More than half your life you have been deliberating intensively over the negative side of everyone and everything around. Nobody expects you to take a reversal all of a sudden for that is not possible as per human standards. Take one step at a time. First, learn to stop seeing the bad and tragic part of your experiences. The second part would be eliminating that practice totally. Once you are able to do that, seeing the positive side of things would come naturally to you.
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Help others
Perhaps it is the idleness of your life or your loneliness that has made you so embittered towards everything. You need to go out and see if somebody needs your help. What is being asked of you here is not to do charity or make some extravagant donations, but simply try to put a smile on other’s face. That would be like spreading the sunshine. With your every step towards helping people, you would realize that there are so many of them who have been wronged by life beyond measures. There are people out there beating cancer, overcoming the death of a spouse in an old age, people struggling to live by earning from hand to mouth. Witnessing all of that would make you think your position in the larger state of affairs and then will you be able to value what you have been given and not be remorseful for what you never got or maybe lost.
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Meditate
There is a reason why people all over the globe are going crazy over the art of mediation. That relieves them of negative and unwanted energies dwelling in their mind. Make this your daily food. Practice meditation for about half an hour or even twenty minutes. Though you need to understand that it is no wodoo magic that we are talking about. It can be six months and even a complete year before you start feeling the changes in your psyche. The art of meditation is to bring your ailing mind and throbbing heart relief from the pain and open it to the abundance of love and compassion that they are capable of. You would be able to see life in a new light.
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Do what pleases you
It could be a hobby or meeting a confidante. Do what has the capacity to cheer you up and snap you out of your negative thought process. You need a clean and fresh wind to wipe through your rotting and decaying mind. Take care of your mind first; your heart would follow naturally in the recovery.
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Keep your sleeping hours in check
Here is one practical tip- avoid sleeping for long hours. If you sleep for around 10-12 hours then break out of that habit. It causes you to lower down your energy level and would make you feel lethargic all day long. The more lethargic and sleepy you feel, the more prone would you be to negative emotions circling your mind and overwhelming you constantly. Be more wakeful and don’t breathe but live through life.
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Stop overanalyzing
You are well aware of your problem of trying to dig in and discover something or the other negative about an issue. So, stop overanalyzing as that would lead you again to your old self. Just be patient and prepare yourself for the bad or the worst. Trying to anticipate will bring you more harm than good.
It is not easy to be done away with what has been a dominating part of your personality for a long time. But, you must do everything in your power to control and diminish it.