#20 Become an Unbridled Optimist

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

– Winston Churchill

It's no secret by now that optimism is good for your health. Researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have even found that looking on the bright side of things has long term, restorative effects and that resilient people weather life's hardships better than pessimists.

A long term study of Vietnam Veterans who were held captive in solitary confinement and tortured for six to eight years revealed several traits that seemed to set them apart in terms of their survival, and non-development of post-traumatic stress syndrome: optimism, altruism, a sense of humor, and having something to live for. All of these traits are ones that we as single parents, surviving far less extreme circumstances I would venture to say, need to have in abundance – and by default, already do. There’s a quote from The Life of Pi where the narrator has lost his entire family and is adrift on the open sea with a Bengal tiger for a traveling companion: “You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result, I perked up and felt much better.”

Dr. Dennis Charney, the same leading expert and researcher on resilience who conducted the Vietnam Vet study, has also found that children, in particular, display remarkable resilience when faced with sources of stress in their environment. After years of research, he is a big believer in the fact that resilient kids, make resilient adults and writes “It has implications for how you might want to raise your children.” He goes on to say:

If you grow up in a stress-free environment, you’re not prepared for the inevitable stresses and strains that life presents. Everybody suffers the loss of loved ones. Everyone faces medical illness and meets with disappointment. The point is that you need to be prepared. I’ve done this with my own children. You need to take them out of their confidence zone. You give them challenges they can manage and therefore learn from. And they develop a psychological toolbox they can call upon when faced with something difficult.

The main point here is that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making optimism your default setting. If you focus on the negative and hard aspects of your life, and “what might have been,” that is then what you see. If you choose instead to focus on what you have, what you are grateful for, and believing that in most circumstances in life things have a way of working out for the best, you will not only be happier but you will create a happier, more positive environment for your kids to also not only survive in but thrive.

I hope these 20 tips can serve as part of your personal toolbox for surviving the first few years of life as a single parent. Whether you're a single mom or dad, gay or straight, American or Icelandic, Portuguese or Filipino, some of the issues you face might be slightly different, but many are fundamentally the same. They are taken from my book The Badass Single Mom's Survival Guide and once traveling resumes some degree of normalcy, please check out The Badass Single Mom's Guide to Traveling the World with Kids.