Let’s say you’re having a rough day. You walk through the park, the mall, or etc and see happy couples, happy families, and carefree singles enjoying themselves. You might think, “why is everyone happy but me?” Change your thinking and you could improve your mood.
A fascinating series of studies, “Misery Has More Company Than People Think,” found that people tend to think they are more alone in their emotional difficulties than they really are. People also tend to think others have more positive emotions than they really do. These miscalculations make people feel lousy. The researchers found that “lower estimations of the prevalence of negative emotional experiences predicted greater loneliness and rumination and lower life satisfaction” in their subjects. Whoa! So if you walk around thinking everyone else is hunkydory and feeling fine, you’re likely to feel isolated and blue.
The brilliant Nobel prize winner Marie Curie wrote: “Life is not easy for any of us.” AND HOW. And continued, “But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”