{"id":7469,"date":"2016-10-24T06:44:27","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T10:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=7469"},"modified":"2017-01-16T17:25:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T21:25:39","slug":"7469","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/7469\/7469\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase Your Happiness &#8211; Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This article is in our series about\u00a0<strong>increasing happiness<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>life satisfaction<\/strong>. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll look at in this series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s\u00a0look at <strong>optimism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mainImage accessible nofocus aligncenter\" tabindex=\"0\" title=\"View source image\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/OmHZd3g5XSU\/maxresdefault.jpg\" alt=\"Image result for optimism\" width=\"367\" height=\"206\" data-bm=\"68\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Optimism about the future hinges on what&#8217;s called our &#8220;explanatory style&#8221; &#8211; what we believe the causes are of good and bad events.<\/p>\n<p>Optimists believe there are <em>permanent <\/em>and\u00a0<em>universal\u00a0<\/em>causes for positive events. \u00a0Optimists generalize positive causes and expect them to continue.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The teacher liked my answer. \u00a0It&#8217;s because I always work hard on my homework (<em>permanent<\/em>), and I always work hard in general (<em>universal<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Optimists believe there are <em>temporary<\/em> and <em>specific<\/em> causes for negative events. \u00a0These causes can be changed and they only apply to this one specific negative event.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I failed the exam. \u00a0It&#8217;s because I didn&#8217;t prepare well this time (<em>temporary<\/em>), or I had a hard time with just this section (<em>specific<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pessimists are the reverse &#8211; they believe there are <em>temporary<\/em> and <em>specific<\/em> causes for positive events, (The teacher liked my answer because he was having a good day today). \u00a0And there are <em>permanent<\/em> and <em>universal<\/em>\u00a0causes for negative events, (I failed the exam because I&#8217;m not very smart).<\/p>\n<p>So first I&#8217;d like you to investigate your own explanatory style. \u00a0Each day, take 2 events, 1 positive and 1 negative &#8211; and see what you&#8217;re thinking about the cause of the event. \u00a0Look at both\u00a0<strong>permanence\u00a0<\/strong>(is the cause permanent or temporary?) and\u00a0<strong>pervasiveness\u00a0<\/strong>(is the cause universal or specific?). \u00a0Next week we&#8217;ll look at how to change our style is we&#8217;re more pessimistic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your assignment: \u00a0Evaluate your\u00a0explanatory style for 1 positive and 1 negative event each day.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is in our series about\u00a0increasing happiness\u00a0and\u00a0life satisfaction. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll look at in this series. Let&#8217;s\u00a0look at optimism. Optimism about the future hinges on what&#8217;s called our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7469"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7933,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions\/7933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}