If you’re a current Quarterlifer, it’s easy to look at the
atmosphere in today’s world and be a bit discouraged and pessimistic. The economy isn’t at its strongest, the job market
is pretty rough for many people in their twenties, it’s tougher these days to
finance higher education and it’s taking longer for young adults to gain full
independence than ever before. Having
someone tell you to “look on the bright side of things” can feel pretty glib
and superficial when you don’t always have control over some of the
circumstances negatively affecting your life.
As difficult as it may seem, however, having a positive and optimistic
mindset about any current situation in your life can have plenty of great
effects that can lead you on the path to positive change.
More often than not, when we look at a negative situation
facing us, it’s easier to think of ourselves as the victim and think that any
bad circumstances that come our way is unfair, whether it is in our control or
not. When you lose a job, break up with
a significant other or find yourself in tough financial times, it’s hard to
turn our thoughts away from the pain that these events cause us at that
moment. No one can predict what the
future will bring, but what we can control is how we reframe and react to these
situations in the present moment.
It’s hard to think ahead to how you will feel about a
current situation in the future, but think back to the past to a time when you
experienced a hardship. Looking back
now, think about how going through that hardship has changed your life
today. What lessons did you learn? Do you feel like a stronger person now for
going through that experience? Even from
the most difficult circumstances in the past can we learn a lesson that will
make us a stronger person today and in the future. It does take time for wounds to heal, but we
can experience our greatest growth if we learn to see all experiences in our
twenties as positive opportunities to learn from, rather than a burden on
what’s to come. There are few life
experiences during our Quarterlife years that we can’t recover from. The key is to take an alternative viewpoint
and be self-aware when those experiences occur and see how you can grow from
them so that we become stronger in the future.
Having a positive and optimistic attitude can also have more
immediate effects in your day-to-day life, as well. For example, in the workplace you may find
that your colleagues, co-workers and supervisors will not always treat you with
the respect you may have earned or deserve, but they are more likely to be
amenable and helpful if you have a more positive attitude in the office. And when you’re faced with tasks at work that
may seem below your aptitude level, or unexciting and unfulfilling, just think
about how you can learn from that task or how you might be benefiting a larger
goal and team effort and learning about what you do or don’t like about that
particular job. It may not make the task
any more exciting, but from these experiences you will develop your greatest
strengths if you use them as a positive growth tool. The same goes for other difficult situations
that you may deal with on a daily basis, as well, like struggling
relationships, problems with money, health issues, etc.
Life in your twenties is filled with moments where we wish
things would go differently, but it is those moments that help move us forward
through our lives. That’s why they’re
called growing pains and not growing
pleasures. It is completely natural to
feel disappointed, discouraged and disillusioned when things don’t go the way
we completely hope that they would. It’s
completely normal and healthy to acknowledge that things aren’t going so well
and feel bad about that, and there is never time when you should ignore those
feelings. When you do experience
setbacks as we travel down our own paths, you can choose to either react in a
negative way moving forward, or you can choose to think positively and take
away all of the positive lessons that will help you grow into a more mature and
emotionally informed adult. Not only
will looking at the world in a more positive and optimistic way help you to grow
into a more confident individual, but it will also change how the world
responds to you. In our current world
where learning to adapt quickly is more important than ever, having a positive
and optimistic attitude will help lead to a beneficial outcome to any obstacles
you have to overcome.
