(in no particular order)
10. World Peace
9. Religion
8. My father
7. Honesty in Landlords
6. Pessimism
5. Public Education
4. Overuse of Antidepressants
3. Morbid Obesity in America
2. Unwieldy Government
1. Losing Weight
That was a tough list for me to write. In general, I tend to look on the sunny side of things; an optimist by nature. Winston Churchill once said: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." What a truth. You're only as defeated as you're willing to defeat yourself.
I found myself to be the most pessimistic about issues beyond my very limited grasp of control. As a general rule, I shrug off the things that I can't control, but there are some issues (like other people and their ill-considered misdeeds) that give your thoughts a second twinge and seduce you into languishing and brooding.
Then there are the personal pessimisms. The things that you do have control over, but don't exercise that control. These aren't seductive whispers, these are the lugubrious raspings of Self-Defeat Personified. The ones you don't want to acknowledge, but inevitably and inexorably face with an averted glance at the end of a hard day. It could be a sneaked cig, an extra two (or eight) cookies, a missed workout and then another and another missed workout, or an addiction that just can't be broken no matter how dangerous it is. These are the slippery, tricky issues that Optimism can't seem to get a solid grasp around. While we'd like to have them chained and gagged somewhere farther than the back of our minds, there they lurk, waiting to slither out in a time of weakness. All I can do is add more positive thinking out of my salt shaker of optimism and have high hopes for tomorrow.
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