It Was a Learning Opportunity
It Was NOT a Mistake
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Here is another example of the difference between an optimist and a pessimist.
The pessimist: “I failed. I’ll never live it down. I am ruined. I’ll never get promoted. Everybody hates me.”
The optimist: “I made a mistake. So what? I learned from it. I’ll probably never do it again. If I do it again, I promise I will step back and try to figure out why I keep making the same mistake. I try not to worry about everybody in the world loving me. That’s impossible thinking. If they love me…great. If they don’t love me…great.”
Or here’s another one that has to do with money. Also known as the root of all evil. “God, look at this mess! Why did you buy another one? What was wrong with the other one? I hate to see things like this on the credit card statement. Should I get a job?”
I’m actually going to have to think about the root of all evil one a little bit more. Money can sure as anything be at the root of stress. I don’t know much about evil, but then nobody close to me right now gambles. I do consider that to be a problem.
I had a friend once who had a problem with gambling.
She kept it well hidden, and I didn’t figure it out until later on. I offered her a place to live with us for a couple of weeks while she figured out a problem she was having with a boyfriend who would not leave her trailer. I had been listening to her complain about him for a long time. I got tired of listening to her complain and offered up a solution. Ten months later we were no longer friends and I had to throw her out of my house.
Suggestions did not help. Reminders did not help. Deadlines did not help. Nothing. Absolutely nothing helped to move her out of my house until I finally resorted to yelling at her, which I did feel bad about. She shook her head and muttered something under her breath as she left. We’ve never spoken again.
It was later on somehow I learned that she had been gambling. I can’t remember how because we no longer moved in the same circles. I might have contacted a co-worker from where we did work together once. That’s the only way I would have known. That’s when it all made sense.
