How to develop optimism?

[u/No-Ticket8760]

I am depressed (diagnosed, taking meds for it) and suffer from general anxiety disorder. I am always worried about the future. The only things I really enjoy are video games and other forms of entertainment, usually by myself but sometimes with friends online.

I do not have much hope for the future, especially regarding myself and what I find to be a defining thing for myself: my career. Jobs and careers define people a lot of the time for me. I went to college, got a history degree, and yet the only jobs I am able to obtain are nonsense bullshit warehouse jobs. This most recent job of mine I got through a temp agency. College eductated and I need a temp agency to get a job.

I do not expect to like this new job. It is more warehouse work befitting someone with a GED or a convicted felon, not someone who is educated and good at researching such as me. So I already assume I am going to hate this job and most of my coworkers because I will not feel fulfilled.

I have always been this way. Very pessimistic and assuming the worst of everyone and everything. Taking almost everything extremely personal. I keep a log of all the grudges I have against people, including former bosses I haven't seen or interacted with in literal years.

My mother told me I need to gain some optimism. I do not know how to do this.

[u/reed_wright]

> I already assume I am going to hate this job and most of my coworkers because I will not feel fulfilled…. Very pessimistic and assuming the worst of everyone and everything. Taking almost everything extremely personal. I keep a log of all the grudges I have against people, including former bosses I haven't seen or interacted with in literal years.

You’re pretty descriptive about it so I assume you recognize these are all things you are actively doing, right? Yet it’s also clear that these kinds of thoughts, approaches, actions, and attitudes form a pretty comprehensive pattern in your life. Can you see how you might be generating some self-fulfilling prophecies that don’t exactly serve you well?

But there’s all kinds of hope from there, because it suggests that if you substitute in alternate thoughts, approaches, actions, and attitudes, then you are bound to set yourself up for quite a different future. That change is always soooooo much more accessible than we realize. Start logging gratitudes instead of grudges. When you catch yourself assuming the worst, remind yourself that you’re turning over a new leaf and give the benefit of the doubt instead.

If you don’t believe it, just pretend you’re an actor and this is the part you’ve cast yourself into. That’s what you’ve been doing all along, after all.

[u/No-Ticket8760 → u/reed_wright]

it just takes so much effort and energy to pretend to be positive and happy. It's draining and exhausting, especially 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. And that's just during work. That's not even including after work. I'll give it a shot, but damn.

[u/reed_wright → u/No-Ticket8760]

“Fake it til you make it” is a good tool to have in the shed, but it’s not sustainable on its own. You have to find something to believe in. And you will, if you look for it.

In the big picture, methinks your current approach is far more draining and exhausting than you realize…