Attitude, The Ultimate Power

Monday, June 25, 2007

Are You Prepared For Success? (Section II - Installment #2 "Bargain With Life" - Male)

(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction])

If you bargain with Life for a penny,

Then Life would pay no more,

However you begged at evening

When you counted your scanty store.

For Life is just an employer,

He gives you what you ask,

But once you have set the wages,

Why, you must bear the task.

If you worked for a menial's hire,

Only to learn, dismayed,

That any wage you'd have had asked of Life,

Life would have willingly paid.

(Based on a poem of unknown authorship)

I strongly suggest that you write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading this poem.

In what ways have you settled and in what ways have you reached for the stars?

By Mel Kaye
Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

Go to Section II (Installment #3)

Nine Words Women Use

1. Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

2. Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3. Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

4. Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

5. Loud Sigh: This is not actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of nothing.)

6. That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7. Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question or faint. Just say you're welcome.

8. Whatever: Is a women's way of saying SCREW YOU, BOZO!

9. Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" For the woman's response refer to #3.

Send this to the men you know, to warn them about arguments they can avoid if they remember this terminology.

Send this to the women you know to give them a good laugh, cause they know it's true.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

General Comment Page

Please leave general comments about my site, my challenge, or in response to any comments I have left on your site in the comment section below.

Thanks you.

Motivational Quotes (6)

MURPHY'S LAWS OF COMBAT
7. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions.
Dag Hammarskjold

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.
Benjamin Mays

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.
Helen Keller

Who you are speaks so loudly, I can hardly hear what you are saying.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one is less ready for tomorrow than the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow will contain.
The Visionary's Handbook

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
Henry Van Dyke

Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoleon Bonaparte

You can't expect to win unless you know why you lose.
Benjamin Lipson

When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word "succeed," you find that it simply means to follow through.
F.W. Nichol

Renewal is the principle and the process that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.
Stephen Covey

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
William James

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
Robert F. Kennedy

Talking to customers tends to counteract the most self-destructive habit of great corporations, that of talking to themselves.
John Brooks, author

Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.
Maya Angelou

Perhaps once in a hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it.
Cecil G. Osborne

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
William A. Foster

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
Sir William Osler

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
Charles F. Kettering

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein

Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make the best of it, as it is, is the only way of being happy.
Jennie Jerome Churchill, mother of Sir Winston Churchill

Indecision is the seedling of fear.
Napoleon Hill, author

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
Napolean Hill

The sun's always shining, even when you can't see it.
Anonymous

Change your thoughts, and you change your world.
Norman Vincent Peale

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer

See Motivational Quote Index for more quotes.

Are You Prepared For Success? (Side Note - 1)

Just a quick side note on my "Are You Prepared For Success?" series..... (Series Index)

As I have been scouring the Internet for similar articles and sites that cover this subject, I have found that inevitably they take you down a path and at the end of that path, in order to complete their process, or fulfill their promise, you have to buy something: a book, a CD, a spot in a seminar.....something. With mine, there is nothing to buy in order to complete the process. I will lay it all out for you. In addition, I have found nothing that addresses the preparation for success to the depths that I do.

Also, you may have noticed that I have no adds on my site. Luring you to my site in order to sell you things that I don't endorse or even use is not my purpose. I have discovered a process that works and I want to share it! That is not to say that I might not figure out some way to make some money on this later on. However, this entire process will be posted on this site.

Misc. - Index

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Are You Prepared For Success? (Section II - Installment #1 "It's Not Your Fault" - Female)

(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction])

It's Not Your Fault

It's not your fault, we hear you say,

The reason you're the person you are today.

It's not your fault, you've been abused.

It's not your fault, you're so confused.

The government's taking away your rights.

Worrying about hate groups keeps you up nights.

And those gangs roaming the streets, it's such a crime.

Your kids demand too much of your time.

There is no time for you.

Oh, dear heaven, what will you do?

It's not your fault, as you sing the blues.

Watching mayhem and murder on the nightly news.

The use of drugs, is that the cause,

Of the way you think and all your flaws?

There the ones. Japan's to blame.

You were doing just fine until the recession came.

You lost your job, you feel so blue,

If your parents had only named you Sue.

Space aliens have controlled your brain.

You can't do it today. It's going to rain.

The radical left and the radical right;

They are the reason you don't have the fight.

Go back to school? But, your far too old.

Why did they leave you out in the cold?

You're in a dead-end job and you can't get out.

"No one will help you," you just want to shout.

Who will give you the things that you need?

Will anyone show you the way to succeed?

Why can't you be a super star?

Why can't you travel, both near and far?

Off to see distant lands;

It's impossible, it's not in you're plans.

You're lost in a world that doesn't care,

Wondering why does life have to be so unfair?

The fear of failure won't let you succeed,

So you'll follow anyone willing to lead.

You feel shackled, imprisoned, condemned;

In desperate need of a savior or friend.

But, it's not your fault, you have to say;

That you can't deal with the way things are today.

..Is this how you feel, with no control?

Being a victim can sure take its toll.

Feeling so drained at the end of the day.

Did you know...it doesn't have to be this way.

What a nice feeling it would be

To actually take responsibility;

Not for what happens to you, but the fact

That you can control the way you react.

You must look at things differently, though;

And know the limits of what you control.

Understand that no one controls how you feel.

Only you can determine what's false and what's real.

Original Poem by Mel Kaye

I strongly suggest that you write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading this poem.

Do you understand what the poem is saying to you and can you put it into your own words?

List examples in your own life.

Do you welcome the message as a truth that you can accept?

List the different ways that you feel like a victim.

How does feeling like a victim make you feel?

By Mel Kaye
Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

Go to Section II - Installment #1 - Female

Are You Prepared For Success? (Section II - Installment #1 "It's Not Your Fault" - Male)

(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction])

It's Not Your Fault

It's not your fault, we hear you say,

The reason you're the person you are today.

It's not your fault, you've been abused.

It's not your fault, you're so confused.

The government's taking away your rights.

Worrying about hate groups keeps you up nights.

And those gangs roaming the streets, it's such a crime.

Your kids demand too much of your time.

There is no time for you.

Oh, dear heaven, what will you do?

It's not your fault, as you sing the blues.

Watching mayhem and murder on the nightly news.

The use of drugs, is that the cause,

Of the way you think and all your flaws?

There the ones. Japan's to blame.

You were doing just fine until the recession came.

They closed down the factory. You lost your job.

If your parents had only named you Bob.

Space aliens have controlled your brain.

You can't do it today. It's going to rain.

The radical left and the radical right;

They are the reason you don't have the fight.

Go back to school? But, your far too old.

Why did they leave you out in the cold?

You're in a dead-end job and you can't get out.

"No one will help you," you just want to shout.

Who will give you the things that you need?

Will anyone show you the way to succeed?

Why can't you be a super star?

Why can't you travel, both near and far?

Off to see distant lands;

It's impossible, it's not in you're plans.

You're lost in a world that doesn't care,

Wondering why does life have to be so unfair?

The fear of failure won't let you succeed,

So you'll follow anyone willing to lead.

You feel shackled, imprisoned, condemned;

In desperate need of a savior or friend.

But, it's not your fault, you have to say;

That you can't deal with the way things are today.

...Is this how you feel, with no control?

Being a victim can sure take its toll.

Feeling so drained at the end of the day.

Did you know...it doesn't have to be this way.

What a nice feeling it would be

To actually take responsibility;

Not for what happens to you, but the fact

That you can control the way you react.

You must look at things differently, though;

And know the limits of what you control.

Understand that no one controls how you feel.

Only you can determine what's false and what's real.

Original Poem by Mel Kaye

I strongly suggest that you write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading this poem.

Do you understand what the poem is saying to you and can you put it into your own words?

List examples in your own life.

Do you welcome the message as a truth that you can accept?

List the different ways that you feel like a victim.

How does feeling like a victim make you feel?

By Mel Kaye
Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

Go to Section II - Installment #2 - Male

Friday, June 22, 2007

Are You Prepared For Success? (Introduction into Section II)

(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success?" [Introduction])

In "Section II" I strongly suggest that you express how the poems make you feel. You may want to use the following list for ideas on what to write:

Write down your immediate reaction, after passionately reading each poem.

Do you understand what the poem is saying to you and can you put it into your own words?

List examples in your own life.

Do you welcome the message as a truth that you can accept?

Can you identify negative attitudes that you would like to replace?

You can use the “Comments” section at the end of each post to write your feelings. You can identify yourself or you can remain anonymous. By doing it this way you may also help others. That decision is completely up to you.

Be sure to use the "Empowerment Triad" of PASSION, PLEASURE & REPETITION whenever you read the poems. This is what will drive the messages into your mind and help facilitate the desired changes.

Remember, you have to be an active participant. Your active involvement is critical to the change process. You will find this process to be cleansing as you prepare for success.

I must again emphasize that you use the appropriate version (male or female.) I will post each one in a separate post and label each one as Male or Female.

By Mel Kaye
Copyright © MondayMorningPower, All rights Reserved

Go to Section II - Installment #1 - Male
Go to Section II - Installment #1 - Female

Power

I use the word “power” a great deal in my writings. In fact, the first mention is at the beginning of my site “Attitude, the Ultimate Power” and in almost every essay that I write.

Apparently, this has caused some consternation with my readers. The following comes directly from a comment placed on one of my posts by Ramana (Rambodoc at large.)

“What is real power? Except for people who deal with issues that affect the lives of nations or entire planets, the most important achievement for an individual is to define the limits of his power. How important is it to be powerful? I think it is important only to the extent you can control your own life, not the lives or outcome of others. I say this because regardless of how inflated an opinion of self each of us may have, think of one thing: "If I die tomorrow, what happens?" The answer is humbling: exactly NOTHING! The world goes on with sublime disregard. So, how are we important? We are, but to our own lives. Once we lose the need to impress others with our power and influence, we will focus on self, and that is ALL that is needed to be successful and happy."

What Ramana is saying is very close to how I view “power”, but obviously, I was not very clear as to my meaning. In fact, I was not clear at all. For that I apologize.

This got me thinking, and as I told Ramana, that can really hurt. The way that I use the term “Power” is not necessarily the same way that others may use this term. My concept (definition) of “power” is inwardly directed, not outwardly directed.

The three major definitions of "power" are:

Authority
Strength
Ability

In my writings “power” is best suited to the "ability" definition. So, in my description of "power" try substituting the word "ability."

The power that one has over his/her own life; the power not to give control of your happiness over to others; the power to control your own destiny; the power to NEVER take on the role of a victim, and the power to succeed in life. At no time in any of my essays or anything that I write or infer do I use the word power as influence over anyone other than yourself. This is absolute and unwavering in the whole concept of my blog.

He is most powerful who has power over himself.

Philip Massinger

By Mel Kaye

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Priceless

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Are You Prepared For Success? (Introduction)

So you want success, financial independence, freedom from worry and the ability to live your life the way you have always dreamed of.

Well, congratulations! You've come to the right place. Here you will learn about success and what it takes to achieve it. You will not only learn what it takes to be successful, but also learn a step-by-step process designed specifically to give you the POWER to be successful. This process works, so I suggest that you take it very seriously! You will find it to be enlightening and a lot of fun.

"Expect to win!"

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

-Emerson

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

The Empowerment Process, when completed, can enable you to:

Build a strong, unshakable, foundation
Understand what power is
Understand where the power is
Harness the power and most importantly
Use the power to:
See the possibilities
Gain financial independence
Succeed at whatever you desire
Achieve and Surpass your goals
Realize freedom from worry
Attain serenity
Live your dreams and
Soar

If you have built castles in the sky, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

-Henry David Thoreau

"Every man is the architect of his own fortune."

-Appius Claudius Caecus

Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

-Richard L. Evans

...The problem of life is to change worry into thinking and anxiety into creative action.

-Harold B. Walker

Before we start, relax and take a few deep breaths. You may be at a low point in your life, emotionally drained and/or financially challenged. On the other hand, you may be in the best place you've ever been in and feel that you are very successful, emotionally healthy, and/or financially secure.

Where the determination is, the way can be found.

-George S. Clason, The Richest Man in Babylon

I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.

-Mike Todd, theatrical entrepreneur

In either case, this program has much to offer. If you are currently discouraged, dejected, depressed, etc., The Empowerment Process will allow you to see beyond your current situation; the power to see the possibilities and the opportunities, and enable you to have the confidence necessary to act upon them. If you feel successful, this program can serve as an energizer and a source of continuous motivation. It will allow you to look at success in a way that you may never have looked at it before. It may even give you some insights into yourself and your real motivations. (If you are one who feels guilty about your success, perhaps this program can help you avoid apologizing for it, or even sabotaging, your success.) The Empowerment Process can add new dimensions to your success.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning

-Ivy Baker Priest

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities - always see them, for they're always there.

-Norman Vincent Peale

Before you can be successful you need to know what success means and prepare for it. You also need to know the ramifications of not understanding success and not preparing for it. The following analogy best illustrates the importance of being prepared for success.

Think of the desire for success as wanting to swim so badly that you jump in the water head first, without any preparation. After you hit the cold water, you realize that you have never taken the time to learn how to swim; you don't know how cold the water is and you don't know how deep it is. You, therefore, will either learn how to swim very quickly (very rare) or you will drown (most likely.)

Success, in many ways, is the same as this swimming analogy. You may not drown, but without the necessary understanding and preparation you probably won't be able to attain success, or if you do, you will not be able to sustain it!

...Getting ready is the secret of success.

-Henry Ford

The Empowerment Process will give you the tools you need to succeed. You will not only be able to recognize success, you will be able to pursue and achieve it.

The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; The optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty.

-L. P. Jacks

Most people don't understand where the real power lies. They think it lies with money and/or controlling others. That is not the definition of power, as defined by The Empowerment Process. That is simply wealth and manipulation. Once you have completed The Empowerment Process, you will know that the real power lies within you. You will have awakened the sleeping giant that is within you…..that is you. You will have the power. You will feel enlightened and charged as you gain more and more power and more and more control over your life.

Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material condition of his life.

-James Allen

As you feel your power growing from within, you will start thinking more about your future success and less about your past failures. You will be able to actively follow your dreams. Keep in mind that your dreams should be within the laws of morality, man and physical reality. Beyond that the world is your oyster.

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

-Charles F. Kettering

Man is as full of potentiality as he is of impotence.

-George Santayana

The Empowerment Process is divided into three Sections:

"Section I" -Preparation & Explanation
"Section II" -Understanding & Acceptance
"Section III"-Ownership & Becoming

Active participation in this process is critical to achieving successful results. Jot down your feelings, impressions, desires, wants, needs, dreams, fears, thoughts, etc.

Some people make things happen,

Some people watch things happen,

And some people say "What Happened."

…Be in the first category

-Casey Stengel

It is also important that you re-read each quote very carefully to make sure you understand it; read it in conjunction with the narrative on the left side of the page. The quotes will help you to remember what you have read, giving emphasis to the right concepts which will help you to obtain the desired results from this program.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

-Michel De Montaigne

You may feel some resistance and possibly feel defensive as you continue. This is an expected reaction, since the process will be asking you to re-think some of your basic attitudes. However, please keep an open mind. If you can accept, and commit to, the premise that you deserve the best that life has to offer and that change is critical to the process, success will surely be yours.

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

-Hindustani proverb

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

For the rest of The Empowerment Process I will be referring to it as “The Process.”

By Mel Kaye

Go to Installment #1

The Optimism Revolution

Following is an interesting article from Psychology Today in regards to the health benefits of being optimistic. I have only reprinted a portion of the article. Because of Copyright protection you will have to follow the link to get the complete article, directly from Psychology Today.

Optimism as you know it isn't always the best medicine. In the new view, behavior trumps positive outlook. Why a healthy mentality paints the world in light and shadow.

By:Jill Neimark

The pain was blinding," recalls Larry Dossey of the afternoon last August when he was thrown by two different horses—within a mere two hours. Dossey, his wife, and another married couple had just spent two weeks camping and fly-fishing in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming—a place so beautiful, he says, that it makes him feel like he's "in touch with the gods."

Dossey, a doctor as well as an early champion of mind-body medicine, cracked his ribs when the first horse spooked; but he allowed the wranglers to mount him on a second horse—their most experienced one—with the hopes of reaching civilization soon. The second horse bolted up the mountain, lunged over an embankment, and sent Dossey flying. He fractured his spine, though he didn't know that at the time.

After testing his ability to wiggle his toes and turn his head, Dossey concluded his best chance for survival was to walk out of the wilderness. "I realized that this was an extraordinarily serious situation with no good solution that I nonetheless had to overcome," he recalls. "And somehow I knew I could overcome it with sufficient courage and resolve." So he suggested that the women, wranglers, and pack horses ride ahead, and that his friend accompany him by foot. Night fell. For 10 hours he walked, in pain "with every step, one flashlight between us, across some of the most rugged territory I've ever seen," says Dossey. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I focused on the act of putting one foot in front of the other. I put my consciousness down in my feet. I stopped every 15 minutes to get on top of the pain."

At about 4 in the morning, they reached the wranglers' base camp, and from there his wife drove him to the small town of Lander, Wyoming, an hour away. But his back pain only worsened, so that he could hardly stand. Two days later they located a spinal specialist in Bozeman, Montana, who diagnosed the fractured vertebra and hospitalized Dossey, putting him on intravenous morphine. For months he wore a body brace , encased in plastic from chin to hips. He now wears a lighter brace and suffers from daily back pain. His conclusion: "I'm absolutely grateful I didn't land on my head or neck. I came within just a whisper of being a quadriplegic. I reflect on this every day."

That's an optimistic appraisal if there ever was one, but Dossey's background as an experienced physician—he's knowledgeable about both trauma and the impact of attitude on health—helped prepare him for what he calls "grounded optimism." So did his experience as a seasoned outdoorsman who'd made annual treks into wild country for three decades, and the fact that he'd served as a battalion surgeon in Vietnam, where he'd often observed the limits of human endurance. As he puts it: "Characterizing optimists as smiley-faced romantics is unfair. Optimists are actually realists who take steps to solve problems"—for instance, the literal steps Dossey took for 10 hours. According to this definition, Dossey and other true optimists are flexible, and anchored in reality. And most important, they get things done.

Optimism: The New View

Optimism has long been considered a straightforward asset when battling illness or adversity. And, broadly speaking, it is. Harvard graduates who were optimists at age 25 had better health outcomes for the next three decades. As Dossey explains, "Optimists have more stable cardiovascular systems, more responsive immune systems, and less of a hormonal response to stress compared to pessimists. They have a stronger sense of self-efficacy, so they're more likely to invoke healthier behaviors because they think it can make a difference."

Of course, to be considered optimistic you have to have a positive long-term outlook and some degree of hope for the future. But a new view of optimism holds that to have a real impact on health, outlook is less important than behavior. By this definition, it is the act of engaging with the world, of taking concrete steps toward goals, that improves health. But there's a wrinkle: Under trying circumstances, optimism can actually lead to fatigue and temporary immune suppression. That finding has helped researchers rethink optimism and how it really works.

It turns out that our standard view of optimism is simplistic, and it is only by observing the nuanced impact of "optimistic" behaviors on the immune system that we can get a more complete picture of this coping style. Grounded optimism gives the brain a built-in action potential: It replaces emotion with motion.

In the end, the hidden key to optimists' better health outcomes may be their propensity to engage with the world and to persist in the face of difficulty, whether it's a night of agonized walking through the wilderness or the willingness to seek out second and third opinions for a medical condition. "Here's the really important piece to understand," says Suzanne Segerstrom, a University of Kentucky psychologist and author of Breaking Murphy's Law: How Optimists Get What They Want from Life—and Pessimists Can Too. "If you're an optimist and working harder at a task, your stress hormones may go up. Your immune function may dip a bit. But it's like doing crunches at the gym. Short-term, more crunches hurt. Long-term, you get a big payback in terms of health and fitness. Optimism leads to increased well-being because it leads you to engage actively in life, not because of a miracle happy juice that optimists have and pessimists don't."

Segerstrom herself embodies this principle: She recently suffered an injury (also involving a horse) that led to unexpected complications, including bursitis and sciatica. "My attitude was, well, somebody has to fix this. So when one doctor couldn't help me, I found another. And I made progress."

Her conclusion? "The more I work on optimism, pessimism, and health, the more I believe optimism's benefits have less to do with mood and much more to do with persistence. The kind of optimism I study is based on a very simple concept: Do you think the future will be mostly good or mostly bad?" If you believe it will be mostly good, says Segerstrom, you'll be motivated to persist through tough times, whether you are naturally cheerful, a worrier, a grump, easygoing, or a bit neurotic.

Optimists' persistence is evident in a study conducted by Lise Solberg Nes, one of Segerstrom's graduate students. Subjects were given a series of anagrams to unscramble. One was impossible and the other 10 were difficult. Pessimists worked on the difficult anagrams an average of 9½ minutes, while optimists worked for an average of 11½ minutes. For the impossible anagram, pessimists worked an average of one minute, while optimists worked twice as long—two minutes.

Faced with a health challenge instead of an anagram, the active, problem-solving approach stands people in good stead. Carol Farran, a professor of nursing at Rush University Medical Center and author of Hope and Hopelessness, was diagnosed with breast cancer 20 years ago at age 42, when her children were in junior high school. Farran had already been conscientious in dealing with two other chronic health problems: endometriosis and fibromyalgia. "For fibromyalgia, I use low doses of antidepressants, massage, and yoga, and I say to myself each day, 'Well, Carol, you can choose to sit around and mope or you can live an active life anyway.' To me, that decision is the axis around which optimism truly turns."

Farran's proactive outlook may have saved her life—it was she who discovered a lentil-size node in her breast. When it turned out to be breast cancer, Farran first suffered crying jags and panic attacks. Shortly after surgery, "I was out with my kids and panicking. We went to a music store, and I got a metronome. Symbolically it was very important. I could set the metronome to whatever speed I wanted, and it reminded me that I could set my life to my own time, fast or slow." Whenever she listened to the metronome, she remembered that it was her choice to reframe and reappraise her life. "It gave a certain meaning to my struggle," she concludes, and it is meaning that helps us regain a sense of control and mastery over our own lives. "You make new choices in life," says Farran. When one goal becomes impossible, the dispositional optimist will find another goal to work toward and bring satisfaction instead.

That ability to reframe life, to find new meaning, is part of an optimistic strategy. "When a crisis strikes," says University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, "optimists tend to alternate between active coping and reappraisal. If active coping fails to fix the problem, they reappraise the situation, looking for hidden benefits, and, invested with flexibility, write a new chapter for their life." For instance, optimistic patients who received bone-marrow transplants for cancer were able to sustain relationships and re-enter the world more readily than their pessimistic counterparts, largely because they used emotional coping and tried to gain something positive from a generally negative experience. Optimism also predicts whether people will remain actively engaged with life after falling ill. In a study of 250 adults with chronic illnesses such as arthritis and cancer, Farran found that 85 percent had to give up meaningful activities (exercise, gardening, traveling). But the hopeful among them replaced lost activities with new and meaningful ones (playing music, writing, socializing) to remain fulfilled.

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