ENTRY 7: Mind over Matter—How You Think Is How You Cope
Many people acknowledge me as an easygoing person. Yung tipo ng taong hindi napaghahalataang may problem o dinadala. And if asked how I manage to remain unfazed in the face of life’s lemons, I would probably answer:
“Lemons? What lemons?”
Either I have no problems or I don’t always see problems as problems—that’s how I am. I have this extremely handy tendency to take things in stride without being too negatively affected. This is not to say that I am stoic and unemotional; it’s just that I tend to be more affected by positive things. Maybe it’s because I have a fairly good command of problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies. Especially emotion-focused strategies.
My optimistic-yet-realistic side helps my mind transcend the situation and see it in its “profitable” light. By “profitable” I mean, how well will this experience enable me to learn and grow as a person? Will it not kill me and instead serve to make me stronger? Things become a lot more bearable when you think of them that way.
On the other hand, it is my defensive pessimist side that drives my problem-focused coping. By contemplating how things will be from that moment on, I prepare myself for both the good and bad things that might happen along the way and find ways to deal with them. Advance planning helps a lot. And in the event that things don’t go according to plan, at least I was able to anticipate failure and managed to emotionally prepare for it.
Thank God for this lovely set of troubleshooting features.
(P.S.: I hope I didn’t sound too preachy or conceited here :3)
