When It Comes To Bad Things Happening
Bad things are going to happen, but some people don’t worry about them happening as much as others. Knowing this can easily help you separate the optimistic from the pessimistic people. Optimists are fully aware that something bad could come their way, but they don’t dwell on it or expect anything bad to happen. Pessimists tend to see all the possibilities of bad things that could happen and then stew in those possibilities with fear and anxiety. They also take extreme precautions to prevent bad things from happening, such as putting unattractive, but strong bars on their windows so that no one can break in (personal experience). Unfortunately, pessimists worry so much about bad things that they often do things that pull bad experiences into their life.
For instance, I once worked with a man named Larry. He was constantly worried that he was going to get fired, even though he was a hard worker and a nice guy. He would ask us to reassure him all the time. He would talk about mistakes he had made as if it was guaranteed that they would get him fired. His anxiety over his job eventually led him to make a life-threatening mistake, and he was fired.