Last week there were TWO brunch options, the first seating featured Amy Lane, Cherie Noel, and Christopher Koehler, who discussed their New Years’ Resolutions. The winner for that was Trix! Thanks for commenting, Trix, I know it was a bit confusing to have two different brunches last week, and I should be back on track here for the forthcoming few weeks anyway.
The second seating of Sunday Brunch last week featured LE Franks, KA Mitchell, and James Buchanan. Their question was about favorite winter pastimes and their winner was Jeff!
This week’s question is about state of mind. I’m really hoping you comment here, I’d like to get a lively discussion going:
Is your glass half-full, half-empty, or poisoned?
Do you know people who have it good and think it’s bad? Do you know people who have it bad, but just keep on chugging like the little engine that could? Which type are you? Were you born that way? Or did circumstances make you that way? What do you think? Tell me in the comments below!
And for a change, I’m going to be one of the authors who answers my question…
I came up with this question because I have always felt like the sole optimist in my family.
My parents had tough times growing up — my dad experienced prejudice and war in Europe and my mother lived through the Great Depression. Yet I know lots of people who have gone through the same time period and emerged hopeful and confident.
I know people who suffered far greater losses, both physically and emotionally than my parents did, yet still manage to expect a favorable outcome from everyday situations. I’ve often wondered whether there is a genetic component to it, or…well… I wonder about those things because I’m adopted and the most optimistic person I know — my husband — comes from a line of optimists going back to the plague years. They’ve been through all kinds of hell, and they still have a positive outlook. My husband is the kind of guy who, if he fell out of a plane, would text me pictures all the way down with the caption, “Look, isn’t this cool?”
What triggers one person to look on the bright side and another to get lost in the shadows? I don’t know. I only know when I’m recapping the year of a bad accident, or a the year our house burned, I am usually mitigating it, saying, “Well… of course we were so lucky. We all got out okay. We had insurance. We had friends who helped us out. We had fun, even. It was an adventure.” We were lucky. I always feel lucky, I always feel blessed, even when bad things happen. I got to be there when my father died, I got to help lay my mother to rest. Those things were possible and I felt lucky.
To an optimist, this means I’m rolling with the punches right? To my mother, it just meant NOTHING REALLY BAD HAS HAPPENED YET. There will be another shoe, and when it drops, you will no longer be able to feel lucky.
Which always sounds like a curse to me. “Someday all that happy you’re storing up right now will not be enough, and then you will understand how I feel.”
I’m not charmed. I’ve been in car accidents. We lost both my parents and parents-in-law. My house burned and I lost most of my most treasured sentimental possessions. Our finances suffered severe setbacks during the recession we’ve never recovered from. I expect, in time, to lose my health and/or my beloved husband to the diseases of old age and eventually I expect to die. I don’t expect it will be easy or painless. Those things aren’t what ifs, they’re given.
And of course I fear every mother’s nightmare — the loss of my children. You can never be prepared for that. The loss of one of my kids would probably put me in the ground early, and yet, it only makes me want to love them even more right this very second. It makes me want to wake them up and ask them every question I have, to find every little thing about them so I can commit it to memory for later. It makes me want to really wallow in what I have right now, and not look ahead to how it might all be taken away.
So I’m not really sure. Am I an optimist? A pessimist? I realist? Am I fooling myself that I have a pretty good attitude and I can go with the flow, whatever happens? I really don’t know. I hope so, but I really don’t know. I guess I’ll say what I always say… Stay Tuned…
[Editor’s Note: I wanted to add here, in case anyone misunderstands: Even though my mother was a pessimist, she was fun, funny, adventurous, highly intelligent, and a blast to spend time with. She wore a button on her coat that said “Since I gave up all hope I feel much better” and that was the truth of her, at her core. Just because she expected the worst and frankly thought life was crap, didn’t mean she didn’t try new things. She was always learning, often laughing. She was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, under a dark cloud, and I wish everyone could have met her.] — Author Z.A. Maxfield
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Half full! I want to keep adding to it, adding to the joy of living. I’ve got so much more I want to learn, to experience, to say, to share, to write. I want to fill that cup with everything I possibly can. And I want to share all those things with others, and then keep on filling up that cup again and again.
Writing (and reading) fiction is a big part of that for me. With each new story, I get to experience all that passion and suspense and love that goes into those characters’ lives, and it’s such a rush to take that journey with them. I’m also very fortunate that, as a writer, I get to share all that with others, and then do it all over again and again.
Thanks so much ZAM for including me in your Sunday Brunch blog series. – Sloan Parker
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[Editor’s Note: Author Ava Doran is a late addition, as she was originally scheduled and I didn’t get her copy until I’d already posted this. Better late than never, I always say!] It’s a tough question, really — only because I find what’s in my glass can vary from day to day.
Thanks again for including me in the brunch today, ZAM. It is very interesting how people react differently to negative (and positive) situations. I love how you describe your husband taking pictures if he fell out of a plane. You sound like you have handled the adversity in your life with incredible grace, and I think that says a lot about your strength of character.
Thank you for coming, Sloan. Always a pleasure to have you here. I think we’re similar in that we’re half-full people. I didn’t want anyone to feel like they had to be falsely optimistic though, and I especially didn’t mean to say pessimists aren’t simply turbo realists. I don’t mean to imply that they’re not amazing, fun people in their own way. It’s just interesting to me to see how different people react to events, and how those events color their perceptions, and also, as someone who was adopted, I’ve often wondered if this personality quirk is nature vs. nurture.
You’re welcome, ZAM. It’s all very fascinating. I know quite a few people who I’d say fall under the “pessimists” or realists category who are incredibly fun people. It’s like they know how to live in the moment more than I do, or something along those lines. It’s definitely interesting how people in the same family can be similar, and yet there may be one or two who are so different than the rest.
I am one who just keeps plugging. Today I learned that the groom’s family is not happy with the plans but they do not want to pay for anything. Not even the rehearsal dinner. They are also are not happy with my daughter as the bride. I think this is a case of groomzilla. Then my middle daughter called and said she is moving back in. Sometimes life is not what it should be. But we shall survive and even thrive, no matter what.
Hi Debra, Boy, oh boy, don’t weddings unearth the very best and worst in all of us? I wonder why that is. I’m not overly fond of ceremony in the first place. Promising one’s life to someone else is fraught with tension anyway, and then you add in the expectation that it’s going to go off like the London production of the Lion King when the royal family is in their box, wow. No pressure, huh?
Good luck, and best wishes to your daughter. Congratulations to the happy couple!
Hi Debra. It’s amazing how many people have horror stories about weddings. Sorry you and your daughter are having to go through that. It should be such a happy time. I hope things improve and that the big day turns out much better than those leading up to it. Best wishes to both of your daughters!
Optimist? Pessimist? I’m not sure, but I do know that things can always get worse and I’m thankful for every single good day. I think I tend to live in the moment and try not to worry about the “what-ifs”.
Hi Barbra, Maybe what we all do is wobble between optimist and pessimist when each serves us, huh? I guess I kind of do. I have good expectations and bad ones, but I try to live in the moment.
Barbra: Sounds like you’ve got a great, healthy balance going on. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
I’m a realist. I have an incurable disease, but life goes on and I enjoy it the best I can. Reading is a big part of what I love and my health doesn’t affect that, thank goodness! I don’t complain and people think I’m an extrovert when I am very much an introvert. Take life a day at a time.
Hey Susan. Realists are GREAT. Wow. You’ve taken what life has handed you with such grace, that’s what I’m talking about. I think that’s where we all want to be, balancing what will be against what we have in the moment and making the conscious choice to exist in the now.
It’s unexpected how my silly questions can end up being about such serious things, thank you for sharing this with us.
Susan: What a great way to look at it. I’m glad you are still able to read and have that enjoyment in your life, and I’m happy to hear you’re enjoying your life as best as you can. I think that’s what most people strive for, no matter what label we would put on ourselves. All the best to you each and every day.
I’m neither, really. I take the good and the bad and just deal. There will always (for a while) be another day.
Andrea, I always think of Scarlett O’Hara when someone says that. That’s a very useful attitude to take!
Well said, Andrea. And probably the healthiest and most productive way to live. Kudos to you!
I don’t know which I am. I do know that I worry a lot about things that haven’t and might not happen, and I know that things other people worry about don’t faze me much. I guess I worry about weird things, maybe?
Hi Jaime! I wonder if there’s another good silly question there for my Sunday Brunch Blog. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever worried about?” I will definitely add that one and see what my author pals think about it!
Choosing what you worry about is probably pretty healthy. I start with stuff I can actually do something about because I’m kind of lazy and I don’t want to spend energy worrying about something I have no control over. But I probably don’t worry nearly as much about things I should be worried about — like how often dinner comes from the drive through window… LOL
Hi, Jaime. Great observation about worry. It can be such a personal thing. Sometimes I’m amazed at what my hon worries about and what isn’t a big deal to her. And I’m sure she thinks the same of me. I guess it’s a good thing we’re well matched so that we both aren’t worrying at the same time. Well, sometimes we do, but it’s not usually at the same exact time.
I’m a cup half-full. I was born this way, but some days it’s difficult to be so optimistic.
Hi Emily! I agree about it being difficult to be optimistic sometimes. I don’t want to be irrationally exuberant about things. I think it’s okay to accept that things don’t always turn out, it’s what you do afterward that makes a difference anyway. For me failure is usually kind of a springboard into the next thing. (But it might take a while for me to come up again.)
Emily: I agree with you on that. Sometimes there are moments where it’s very hard to think of the good in life or the good in a particular crisis. I like what ZAM said about failure being a springboard. I’ve found that’s very true in my life. In “bad times” I do try to look at what I want to do next, what I want to learn and accomplish. And when I’m “living in the moment” and enjoying life I try to really experience that moment. But like you said, it can be hard. Thanks for stopping by and sharing!
I’m a realist with a hopeful streak who believes in being grateful for the big and small things in our lives.
Jbst: Being a hopeful, grateful realist seems like one of the sanest and happiest ways to live. At least when I look at the people around me. I hope it is for you.