Posted by devon00 on January 5, 2004, at 17:59:34
Here is the thing. I think people think of me as an unusually pessimistic person. I complain a lot (I'm very sensitive to rejection, annoyance, everyday difficulties, etc.). I often express and feel disappointment in all different areas of my life. This is just a pattern of thinking that comes from my family and is very hard to shake.
The thing is that I think of myself as a *very* optimistic person, in a way. Whereas everyone else seems to expect things to turn out bad, I expect them to turn out great. They expect friends to disappoint them. I don't. They expect life to be hard, tedious, frustrating. I don't. They expect work to be unfulfilling. I don't, etc, etc. Inevitably, my super-high expectations (for myself as well as the world around me) and idealized vision of the way things "could" and "should" be leads me to be disappointed, surprised, and (ocassionaly) outraged about "the way things are." Hence I seem to be a pessimist rather than a disappointed optimist.
It's hard for me to accept things just "as is" and move on from my vision for how they "could be." How can I see things from a different perspective? I'm an INFJ, which seems related to this problem. Thanks for your thoughts.
poster:devon00
thread:296873
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031229/msgs/296873.html