Surprised? With a how-to:

You Are a Realist

You don't see the glass as half empty or half full. You see what's exactly in the glass. You never try to make a bad situation seem better than it is... But you also never sabotage any good things you have going on. You are brutally honest in your assessments of situations - and this always seems to help you cope.

And just so you know, Psychology Today says I'm an optimist. So there. I score 68/100 on hopefulness, 76 on coping skills and a mere 22 on cynicism (and I'm sure these test results are just as valid as a session with an actual psychologist).

You're shocked, I know, because I'm always going on and on and on about how the world is going to hell in handbasket if we don't get off our collective over-privileged western asses and do something. This remains true. But if I weren't an optimist, I couldn't be in the job I have, trying every day to change things--you have to believe change is possible or you just can't do it. I do. I really think we can pull this off. Otherwise, I would quit my job, go home, and eat chocolate until the apocalypse comes. But that's different from believing that we don't actually have some serious problems on our hands.

Still, part of that loopy logic-defeating optimism (sure, we need to reduce our consumption of planetary resources 75% over ten years--who's with me!) is thinking that 62/100 overall isn't bad, but if I worked at it a little bit, I could probably do better. So when I read in an article a short while ago that one way to increase one's optimistic outlook is by writing down three good things that happen every day in a journal, I thought, I can do that. Three things, can't take more than five minutes, and maybe it'll save me a heart attack one day.

I also like the idea of writing down three good things that happen every day without a specific emotional agenda except to become slightly more optimistic over time, unlike the daily gratitude journals which, honestly, kind of creep me out. Who wants to force themselves to feel grateful every day? I mean, come on, aren't you ever entitled just to have a really crappy day and not feel thankful for it? Whereas I think that even on a really crappy day I could probably find three small good things that happened, and write them down, even if I can't manage to feel good about them at the time. (1. I didn't die. 2. The world did not end today. 3. I have not been convicted of a felony. (Here's hoping I never have to use that list.))

There was only one problem with this scheme.

I never remembered to write them down. My journal was always in some other room, and by the time I was ready for bed I didn't want to go downstairs to get it just to write down three good things. Normally I like to keep everything in the one journal. Daily events, brainstorming, the occasional to-do list, daydreaming, rants, what have you, it all ends up in the same orange journal because otherwise I feel schizophrenic, as if I'm dividing myself into Selves. I don't like it. Still, I thought, for the sake of this one project, I could probably have one split-off journal. Something small that can easily fit on my nightstand so I see it every day. I looked around, I had nothing handy. I thought about buying a little notebook, but found it wasn't something I really wanted to spend money on.

Instead, I looked through my book-making books and made one (the link goes to the book I used for this project). A little single-pamphlet that took about twenty minutes. Eight sheets of blank sketch paper cut 9.25" x 4.5", a piece of cardstock cut 10" x 5". Fold them all sharply in half, nest them, and use a ruler to mark where two holes should go, about 1" from the edges. Use a good strong needle to make the holes. Three plies of embroidery floss run through the holes once and tied into a double knot on the outside makes it a book (you can also use sewing thread or even dental floss--whatever you have handy. The plus of using embroidery floss is that you can make four books this way, and then use a friendship-bracelet pattern with the embroidery floss to join them together, as illustrated in this book-making book. I figured this way if I ever got to the point of filling four books with good things--they're not big, it's conceivable--I could join them all up together and it wouldn't be hard or take long but it would look nice.)

Frances liked mine so much she asked me to make her one too, but with an orange cover and a frog stamp but it still had to have the pink swirlie and she had a very particular title in mind. She's doing something a little different with the contents, though (each page, so far, is being coloured one solid colour). It turned out to be such an easy project that I think we are going to do it again, when the first volume is filled. Frances is very excited about having a book that is all for her that her mom made. It also makes me sound very crafty and wholesome and good-Momish, even if it did take only twenty minutes and use scrapbooking remnants. And because you're making it yourself, it can be any size or colour you like, with anything you want on the cover. For the inner pages, you could use watercolour sheets, papers that are patterned on one side and blank on the other, lined paper, drawing paper, envelopes, whatever suits the use you're going to put it to.

It was so much fun that I've been making other simple and not-so-simple books since then, one of which I think will turn into a vision-board-in-book-form as a way to keep the goofy collage off the walls. (I like my walls. I want to have attractive things on the walls.) I might post a few of them when they're done. It's one of those things that sounds intimidating but, once you give it a shot, turns out to be very simple. And now I have the perfect mini-journal for a particular mini-project.

Posted by Andrea at May 6, 2008 3:26 PM under Change Addict , Crafty Lady

EMAIL this entry

(comments fields are below this section)