Why is it that we choose, out of a wide range of available options, explanations for occurrences in our lives that lean toward the pessimistic? I am sure you have noticed this tendency in yourself or others from time to time. Some project you are working on goes bad and your first reaction may be What I loser I am rather than I wonder why the wheels fell off this thing? While many of us are prone to draw the former conclusion at least initially before challenging and correcting it, many others are blissfully unaware that they catastrophize in this way and have long since failed to wonder why they often seem to feel so low.
Catastrophizing can be defined as placing the worst possible explanation on the misfortunes of life we all experience. If we get turned down for a date, we do not say I guess she doesn’t find me attractive. Instead we say Nobody will ever love me. If we get turned down for a job, we do not say I guess I was a poor fit for the position; we say Nobody will ever hire me. Get the picture?
One possible explanation for this tendency may have evolved from our caveman past, a throwback to a need for self-preservation in a hostile environment. When going out on a hunt it was probably more helpful and constructive to think I may run into a saber-tooth tiger, so I guess I’ll bring my heavy-duty club rather than relying upon a slingshot for protection. The modern-day equivalent would be going to a party, having a few drinks, and then deciding Hey, if I drive now, I could easily have a wreck. In these scenarios, anticipating the worst is healthy adaptive behavior. While these types of circumstances help explain why adopting a pessimistic outlook may be beneficial at least some of the time, they fail to explain why so many people choose it as often as they do.
Sometimes, when attempting to attain an important personal goal, it becomes difficult to tolerate the stress involved. When someone is searching for a lover, for example, they may have to endure a great deal of back and forth in the process. They see someone they are interested in, approach and engage them and then find out that other person is not available, interested, etc., and they suffer a minor defeat. Undeterred, they set out again with the same goal in mind but incur the same result. Once this cycle goes on more or less the same for several trials, a certain amount of wear and tear begins to accumulate. It begins to become difficult to maintain a sense that This will work out if I can only remain positive. Soon the effort of searching itself becomes problematic, having for so long been associated with failure and disappointment. It is at this point that it becomes easier just to say Nobody will ever want me and sink into what feels for the moment like blissful resignation. And unless that person can extricate themselves from this routine, regroup and replenish, the resignation they feel is likely to become habitual.
Who would ever have thought that an interesting remedy for falling into pessimistic explanations for everyday misfortunes would be found in a children’s book penned in 1913? I am speaking of Eleanor H. Porter’s children’s classic Pollyanna. The term Pollyanna today is pejorative. In today’s culture it describes unremitting optimism, someone cheerful and upbeat to a fault, almost boorishly so. But nothing could be further from the truth. In the book, Pollyanna is orphaned at about age ten and sent to live with a spinsterly aunt in a gloomy country village. Left to her own resources, she recalls a game her father had taught her, which he called the Glad Game.
In this game you had to find something to feel glad about in any given situation. At one point Pollyanna receives as a gift a pair of crutches when she was expecting a doll. Though obviously disappointed, she decided that she was glad because she did not need the crutches. All throughout the book she teaches the game to the villagers, and, when she meets with a serious accident, all of them come back to cheer her up the same way she did them. Everything works out happily ever after in the way that can only be found in a book written 108 years ago.
So, the gauntlet has been thrown by a fictional girl who would now be 118 years old. Can you play the Glad Game? Find something in every unfortunate situation to be glad about. Be creative. Pollyanna’s idea was that it takes just as much effort to be unhappy about something as it does to find something to feel glad about. Home spun I know, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. I have been playing a lot lately and have found that the glad feelings have been coming more and more quickly to where they are now the first thing I tend to notice.
Our beliefs, the meaning we give to even (especially) mundane situations, determine so much how we see and feel about ourselves. As we are free to choose which aspect of any given situation we care to focus upon, playing the Glad Game makes a lot of sense. As it is so simple and easy to understand and play, it does become a particularly wonderful device to employ with children (which is, I assume, exactly what Mrs. Porter had in mind.) Try it with your kids. Turn off the cell phone, i-pod, blackberry, laptop, x-box, PC and HDTV for a while and take turns reading the book aloud as a family. It would be such a wonderful opportunity to share a rewarding experience together while providing your children with some useful tools for dealing with everyday adversity and maintaining a positive outlook. I am sure Pollyanna would feel glad if you did.
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