What is the central skill of optimism? It may not be what you think.
Does positive self talk make you want to puke?
Yeah, me too. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying to summon my inner Stuart Smalley on many occasions. Each one has left me feeling ill.
But there’s good news here for you regardless of whether you’re a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person.
Dr. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association and author of Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism writes that positive thinking and self talk is best used to quiet your inner critic.
“We have found over the years that positive statements you make to yourself have little if any effect. What is crucial is what you think when you fail, using the power of non-negative thinking. Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.”
A few months back I did a mental inventory on my own thinking and practices and found that my negative self talk had seized the bully pulpit! Since they I’ve enjoyed greater peace of mind by quieting my inner critic and stopping what Seligman refers to as catastropic thinking. I’ve also been able to acknowledge in my own way the things I’ve done right. What’s amazed me the most about the difference this has made is the striking speed of change that these internal shifts are having.
What say you? Are you optimistic by nature or have you found certain ways to embrace optimism?
I DVR’d all the local news coverage of the 1515 S. Flagler Drive building implosion and channel 5 did by far the best job of covering all the angles of the implosion and story with views from their helicopter, a close-in streaming cam that got wiped out, and other views. Nice job Channel 5 – WPTV! Take a look.
Hint: If you click on the menu button on the WPTV you can watch in full screen.
Standing just half a mile from our home in West Palm Beach Florida, 1515 S. Flagler Drive has stood vacant and hurricane ravaged since 2004. A silent companion to my daily walks along the intracoastal waterway with my two dogs, the building, long an eyesore to residents, was strangely a comforting sight to me amongst all the perfection and money that makes up this little slice of South Florida.
Years of wrangling between developers, the city and nearby residents finally culminated in a spectacular building implosion on Valentine’s Day – February 14, 2010.
The third largest building implosion in the U.S. went flawlessly with none of the nearby buildings sustaining any major damage. Chalk another successful blast up for The Kelly family of Advanced Explosives Demolitions of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. I read in an earlier article that the family planned to have their five year old daughter push the button.
Most spectators were jubilant about the building going down but one viewer who was crying told my sister-in-law that it reminded her of 911.
Over the last few months I’ve read great stories of people who grew up in the building and they’ve expressed fond memories about their former home, memories of family, relatives who have passed on, and happy holidays spent in the building. The permanence of physical things in comparison to our own flesh and blood has always been a fascination for me. Perhaps that’s why this building’s death was so compelling to me. I’ve shot lots of video of the building from all different angles and taken many pictures as well. The building has always been a subject for me even before it was set to be taken down.
I was always hopeful they would restore the building as it had a great South Florida style that’s unlikely to be rivaled by the modern building that will replace it soon.
