Written By Brandy Centolanza
I’m in the middle of writing an article about a 21-year-old woman in remission after discovering she had cancer on her 17th birthday. During our interview, this young woman told me after she received the news that she could either dwell on it and think about the negatives or focus on the positives, and she chose to be optimistic. As I drove away after our meeting, I thought, Wow, I wish I could be more like her. Her inspirational story along with a recent article I read on Facebook about the power of thinking positively really struck a chord with me because, well, you see, I’m just not a positive person. I know I can be. I know I should be. I want to be. I just don’t know how. Some days, it is really trying for me to see the upside of things. Some days, when a friend doesn’t respond to an email immediately after I send it, I wonder if she is mad at me for some reason. When my husband is out of town, my mind automatically assumes there will be some kind of accident involving myself or the kids. Some days, I never think anything I write is good enough, and I actually told my editor I wasn’t sure if I was doing this whole blogging thing correctly. My mind often wonders to what could go wrong. I lay in bed at night frequently thinking of all the things I did wrong during the day or all the things I shouldn’t have said, especially when it comes to my children. I don’t want to be this way. Thankfully, my husband is the opposite and always has a shiny outlook on life. I hope my children will inherit his views instead of mine. I hope my children always wake up with smiles on their faces and think today is going to be a great day. I don’t want them to develop this negative side of them that often consumes me. I think any pessimist would agree that it is difficult to change this way of thinking, to simply snap your fingers and think every day is going to be full of sunshine and rainbows, particularly if you have always felt this way. I certainly do want to change, though, for the sake of my children. I think meeting with this cancer survivor has really made me realize that. The first step in anything is admitting that you have a problem, right? My name is Brandy and I am a negative person. There. Now how do I start to change? That is the question. Suggestions from all you optimists out there are welcome.
