How "But" Can Help You Turn A Negative To A Positive

I am a pessimist by nature. When bad things happen to me, my first reaction is always wondering how bad it will get next, who I have to fight to avoid being taken advantage of or how much the situation will cost me in terms of money, time or other resources.

I think that pessimism is part of what makes me so controlling at times. If I can just organize enough, prepare enough or manipulate a situation enough, I'll somehow see the trouble coming, or at least have the resources to battle it. Better yet, hopefully problems will avoid me altogether because they don't want to deal with a controlling, pessimistic witch.

It would be great if life worked that way, but it doesn't. Nothing you do can prepare you enough to completely prevent bad things from happening. Life is a zero sum game in that respect, the outcome of a balanced equation that ensures for every plus there is a minus, for every yin a yang, every up a down. The only thing you really get to control is how you manage your emotions through the ups and downs, and a big part of that control is finding perspective wherever and however you can.

My car broke down today. It was the most recent headache in a week fraught with them. Because I'm hard-wired for pessimism, my mind immediately started with the "why me, what did I do to deserve this" thoughts. I began focusing on the massive monkey wrench in the plans for my day, worrying about what the problem could be and what it would possibly cost me and how many other things would be turned into a mess in the coming week because of massive dip in the roller coasted track I didn't see coming. I even had the irrational thought that somehow this is my fault, some grand karmic payback from the universe that would strike me with the only freakish problem NOT covered under warranty that could possibly happen to a two year old car with only 30, 000 miles. I almost had a Sally Field-style breakdown.



Then voices of reason gradually crept back into my head. I was reminded that many of the people I love most faced a hurricane in the past 24 hours and made it through with no serious damage or injury. Other friends were still without power from the storm while I sat in comfortably in my air conditioned 73 degree apartment. I wasn't sitting in a hospital day after day watching my daughter fight for her life like another friend. I'm not fighting a terrible disease and I'm not dying -- and I know people doing both right now. In the grand scheme of things, my problems are so small I should be embarrassed at being so upset about a little thing like a car.

As I listened to all the negative voices in my head, I put a "but" at the end of every statement and continued my mental sentence with a counterpoint argument. It's a little trick I learned some time ago that when you use the word "but" as a transition between two thoughts, the "but" negates the first statement so the only thing you hear is the second part. Here's how it works:

"I can't get to work without my car, but I can work at home from my laptop like I did on Friday."

"I'm completely out of food, but I'm in walking distance to plenty of places to eat so I won't starve."

"I don't have much flexibility to go out right now, but I really have everything I need here at home."

I may still be a pessimist, BUT I still have some good things going for me.