Outlook

I seems to me that my generally positive outlook on life has taken a fair amount of practice. I'm not a naturally cheerful person. Nor am I incorrigibly optimistic. Yet I maintain a half-full outlook through most days. 

A deep depression over the deaths of several people close to me when I was very young dented my genuinely optimistic childhood. Despite being a sickly kid, I was known for being unnaturally cheerful among the people whom I loved. When I became depressed at eleven, I secretly fell to the deepest depths of suicidal pessimism.

I emerged from that depression five years later when I entered university. The shock of finding myself in premedical studies at sixteen with peers from higher socioeconomic backgrounds than my own got my attention. My professors were brutally clear that they were on a mission to cut 2/3 of the entering premedical class. "Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will be here after the first year." That was the speech on the first day of freshman orientation.

I realized some years later that I didn't really belong there. I was an obsessive-compulsive, dyslectic, gay kid with a panic disorder, commuting from a troubled home 90 minutes in each direction on public transportation. And there I was in the most competitive program of a nationally respected private university.  I decided to swim rather than sink. I see that time as the start of my daily practice. 

It became obvious to me very soon that my outlook each day at the university had a significant impact on my performance and on my social interactions. I developed a method of gearing up for classes on the trolley ride to the campus. It was an early form of meditation in my life. Between classes, when my dormitory-residing friends went off to their own dining commons, I smuggled my bagged lunch into the library stacks. I secured a remote cubicle in the stacks. Like a hunched-over monk, I nibbled my lunch and studied with intense concentration. 

I graduated third in my premedical class four years later. And, despite the fact I had a degree I had no real interest in parlaying into an elite medical career, I knew I could control my mind and body to achieve. This is a tremendous lesson for a 20-year-old. I knew then that my process of managing my outlook on life's situations could turn difficult challenges into bearable and workable situations. 

Given the challenges to humanism in current society, that ability to maintain a positive daily outlook is priceless. This blog is part of my process in maintaining a healthy and practical outlook on my own life in its environment. I work through tendencies to become overwhelmed by what is wrong with my life to take even a minor step to do something to make it better. Opening the door to view the possibilities is the first step in developing a positive outlook. This takes practice. Meditation, self-education and reflection help a great deal. Maintaining physical health is essential.