When I started this exercise, I believed it would help me. Now, I am not sure if this will help me. In fact, I am concerned that this exercise is highlighting the deficiencies in my life and making me feel worse. I have not written about my family, for example, because . . . it is very painful.
Whether or not this works for me, I still recommend this exercise for nearly everyone else. Objectively, I can see how for most people in most situations, this process would help people to shift their focus and improve their lives.
I believe that the optimism exercise is way of training your mind to see life more positively and to escape from the problem in the above video.
Frankly, I still have no idea what three things I will write today. I feel frustrated. I am also worried that my inability to think of three things means that I am a bad person who does not appreciate the things in my life that I should appreciate.
“. . . chicken teriyaki, buffalo wings, chicken vindaloo, cashew chicken, chicken tacos, . . .”
Three things for which I am grateful:
- Indoor plumbing, especially toilets. Chamber pots sound horrible and outhouses sound terrible during rain, snow, or extreme heat.
- Air conditioning. I grew up mostly in Houston, Texas and it is very hot there.
- Plastic. We overuse plastic and we do not recycle it enough, but plastic has saved millions of lives, and perhaps counter-intuitively, it has reduced our energy needs in many areas because it is lighter than other materials so shipping it requires less energy.
