Grow up, already. Get positive

Cut out that world-weary air. People who have really been there and done that come out singing. Listen as IVY ONG-WOOD gets perky.

Don't we all have a friend like this? Tell her you're pregnatn and she says: "Prepare to give up your social life for 20 years." Tell her that property prices are so low she can afford her condo now and she sighs: "Yes, but I still must fork out the 5 per cent downpayment."

Compliment her on losing weight? "My clothes don't fit anymore." If you were to say "have a nice day", she'll snap back: "Yeah, right."

I have a friend like that, who's adult as an adult can be - in her 30s, with a place of her own, and heads a team of eight people at work. When it comes to tackling deep dinner conversation or fighting intricate fires at work, she has us all beat.

Pity she has to spoil it all when she unleashes her stream of negativity. She thinks the cynical, life's-a-bitch act is a sign of maturity but instead, she comes off looking like a pouty, angst-ridden teenager - everything is "no", "shan't" and "you don't understand". Your hand just itches to smack her out of her smug world-weariness.

Ironically, if she were a little more positive, she might actually come across as a lot more grown-up - because optimism is a telling sign of maturity. Psychologist and confidence speaker Jerome Murray notes in this website, www.betteryou.com, that one of the marks of emotional maturity is "the capacity to relate positively to life experiences". So the more mature you are, the more cheerful you get.

He adds: "A mature person views life experiences as learning experiences and when they are positive, she enjoys and revels in life. When they are negative, she accepts personal responsibility and is confident she can learn from them to improve her life. When things do not go well, she looks for an opportunity to suceed. The immature person curses the rain while the mature person sells umbrellas."

To test his theory, I ask the more mature women I know whether this is true of them. All answer with a respounding yes and, in fact, the older they are, the louder the yes.

The oldest of the lot, housewife Esther Huang, who's in her 60s, says: "One has to go through the journey of life and survive the storm - experience failure and success, love and hate, ups and downs, sorry and joy - before you can be confident that the future can only get brighter and happier."

Always look on the bright side
Some women are lucky to be born optimists. Bridget Lew is one of them. The president of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, which helps maids and construction workers, has seen some of the worsr cases of maid abuse and forced prostitution in Singapore - which could turn even the most cheerful of social workers cynical about human nature.

But not Bridget. Everytime I meet her, it's about yet another maid who has been cheated or ill-treated, but never once have I heard her say: "I can't take it anymore." The 56-year-old explains in her cheerful manner: "Maybe I am too much of an idealist for my own good. Bad things happen but I believe that, by helping people, I can make the world a better place."

If only it could be as instinctive for the rest of us mere mortals, for whom a lack of taxis at 11.30pm can only mean that drivers are waiting for more expensive night surcharge. How can we stop being so cynical about life? It comes with experience, says Nominated MP Geh Min, who's also an eye surgeon. "I think some people are naturally optimistic; I'm not one of them. But being positive is something you can train yourself to be."

The first step is to stop thinking that the world revolves around you, as teenagers often do. Says Esther: "I used to think that the world revolved around me and society had to change to suite my purposes. This misconception had cause me to see the world in a pessimistic light."

"Optimism is a telling sign of maturity. The more mature you are, the more cheerful you get."

With experience, you will realise that some things can never change, so you rethink your attitude instead. Recalls Youth@Aware president Harmin Kaur Gill: "In my teens and 20s, I was really pessimistic. If anything bad ever happened to me, like failing exams or not being asked out by a boy I liked, I always thought I had it the worst."

But now, the 28-year old is calmer and happier. "I didn't change overnight but I think that as you grow, you come to see the bigger picture and no matter how bad something is, you know it happens for a reason."

Her philosophy now is "if my toenail falls off, as it does quite often, I console myself by thinking that at least I have a toe". Her determined optimism stood by her in good stead two months ago, when she discovered lumps in her breasts. "If they appeared in my early 20s, I'm sure I would have thought it was the end of the world.

When you're chewing on life's gristel, Dont grumble, give it a whistle. And this'll help things turn out for the best. So always look on the bright sure of life...
- FROM MONTY PYTHON

"As it was, I panicked of course - that was natural. But then, I asked myself: What's the worst case scenario? If it were canser, it would still only be at Stage 1. There were lots of women out there who were at stage 3 so I should stop worrying so much." Thankfully, the lumps were not cancerous.

Don't worry, be happy
When I tell my cynical friend about optimism being the mark of maturity, she gives me a cynical (but of course) look and counters: "I'll bet those people really haven't had anything bad happen to them. That's why they can be so cheerful."

Well,actually, it's not a case of ignorance being bliss. Quite the oppotise, in fact. The most positive women are those who have faces the lowest of lows and emerged saying life is still worth living. "Afters you've been through hell and back, you realise it can only get better from here," says Harmin.

You can only imagine what Nanz Chong-Komo, for example went through in 2003. Now a business trainer, she watched her once-thriving One.99 business collapse and had to battle bankruptcy while worrying about the family expenses.

She had just given birth and both she and her husband were jobless (he had quit his job to help her out in her business) for a couple of months. Yet, when I met her then, she still had a sunny smile and "things could be worse" attitude. My sympathetic: "How are you holding up?" was met with a quick smile: "I'm quite happy to get so much time to spend with my kids."

The secret is to keep things in perspective. "Despite everything that happened, I still consider my life to be easy," Nanz, 37, tells me chipily. "There are many more people out there with thougher lives, I am so much more blessed."

For Esther, it was her health. She found she had breast cancer in 2002, and thought she was going to die. But she told herself every day when she woke up: "I still have today."

You don't need to have life-changing experience liek theirs to get to that same level of maturity, though. Says Dr Deh Min, 55: "Solving problems rather than allowing them to wear you down, gives you more confidence. As you mature, you develop that emotional confidence, which gives you a better perspective in life."

The sun will come out
Above all, the on thing that all my interviewees agree on is this: They're more positive as they grow older because they realise that their life on Earth is growing shorter. Teenagers have a whole lifetime ahead but no someone in her 50s, so why waste it by being self-defeating? Says Dr Geh Min: "When you get older, you realise you have only one life. Look around - people who are optimistic about life are happier whatever their circumstances, whereas pessimists are always discontented. If you have only one life, don't you owe it to yourself to live it happily?"

The importnat thing to remember is that staying positive is not a lonesome thing. Not everyone no matter how mature she is, has an umbrella for every storm cloud that rolls her way.

The solution? You need to surround yourself with positive peoplr. "I don't see it as a personal struggel," sayd Dr Geh Min, "It's a web of support."

Esther, for example, has a network of dragon-boating team members to cheer her on. "Life is never easy; nos is life fair," she says. "But you are the sower of your own life and your life will be a harvest what you sowed," she says.

Author Amy Tan once said: "If you cant change your fate, change your attitude." So I think I'm going to give my grumpy friend another chance to add some sunshine to her life. I optimistically believe she will not chew me up but wish me luck anyway. HW

Another bad day?
Here's how you can keep smiling:

Exorcise bad juju. Hang around negative people and you'll soon start feeling cynical yourself. Sorry, you've got to axe all pessimists from your group.
Look on the flip side. The next time you catch yourse;f thinking negative thoughtsd, consciously flip them over and try to find postivie ones to counteract them. Job getting you down? Aren't you lucky you still have a job?
Step back. It'll give you a bettyer perspective. Max out your credit card? It's not like loansharks are at the door - just cut back your spending till you get out of debt again. REmember, it's not the end of the world.
Fake it. Don't laugh - some psychologists actually use this in therapy. The rationale behind it is that if you fake something long enough, you'll soon start believing in it.
Wear yellow and orange. Psychological studies have shown that these are the two colours most likely to life your mood.
Go fly a kite. Or do something that will make you happy, like going to a karaoke, walking the dog or reading a book. The problem won't go away but at least you'll be in a better frame of mind to tackle it.

Source: http://creatingco2.blogspot.com/2005/12/grow-up-already-get-positive.html,
Her World December 2005 issue