Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Teresa Griffith.

Imagine you go out for dinner with a friend, and the service at the restaurant is incredibly slow.

There seem to be enough servers, but somehow, you have to wait forever to get your drinks and place your order. As the two of you wait, you criticize the service and feel very frustrated.

You wonder, as your stomach rumbles, if your food will ever come. By the time it does, you are so hungry you wolf it down and barely taste it.

A week later, some other friends suggest going to the same restaurant. You relay your story, but they say they’ve always had good service there, so you decide to go along.

You sit, place your drink orders and soon get chatting, telling stories and laughing. Although nothing seems to have changed in the restaurant, the service is timely and excellent, the food delicious, and a great time is had by all.

Optimism or pessimism — we all have the choice about how to approach life. Believing the best — always choosing to be optimistic — changes everything.

Believing the best about the situation

Although we can’t control each and every thing that happens in our lives, we can control the way we react to those things. Often, it seems to be the only thing we can control. Rather than be tossed about by situations or others’ opinions, choosing how we think allows us to choose how we will feel as well.

If you want to feel more positive, choose to be more optimistic. There is always a silver lining to every cloud, so make it your mission every day to find it. Focusing on and appreciating the good things in our lives increases our resilience, hopefulness and positive outlook.

Believing the best about a situation also means visualizing a happy ending. How often do we get into a pattern of negative fantasizing, stringing together a dramatic story in our heads of this bad thing and that terrible thing, and yikes, what might happen next!?! I call this “apocalypsing” — imagining the apocalypse in everyday situations.

Whenever I realize I’m doing it again, I stop it and immediately start imagining a better ending — such as, that person I need to confront is receptive instead of resistant, and the timing of my phone call will be perfect. I have found that it is just as easy to use my imagination for good than for, well, stress!

Believing the best about others

How we think and feel about others is not as simple as what they’ve done to us. We tend to feel negatively about others when we are most upset with ourselves. Think about something that irritates you, something that someone else does. Is there any chance this very thing is something you are dealing with yourself about?

Could it be something you hate about yourself? Or, are you upset with yourself about something unrelated, which is making you overreact? Take a few deep breaths, try to gain some perspective and realize that the other person is probably not trying to hurt you intentionally. Your main frustration might be directed inward.

Let me give you an example. I get quite irritated when I feel I am being pushed or manipulated. I was dog-sitting recently and a few times when the super-energetic beagle would push me, I would respond with disproportionate frustration. I had to stop and think about why I reacted so strongly!

I realized that it was because I had been pushing myself too hard — demanding that I meet my goals and not sleeping enough. I tend to have a very strong internal “master” and when it gets unreasonable, the “slave” in me rebels. I needed to be a little kinder to myself and take better care of my body.

Another reason we react strongly to others is when we feel we have a lack of something in our lives — lack of money, lack of time, lack of respect, etc. If we can learn to take care of ourselves first and keep our stress levels down, we can more easily remind ourselves that we have all the resources we need and everything will work out — and we can believe the best in others. Here’s a mantra to try:

Everyone is just doing the best they can with where they are and what they know.

Believing the best about yourself

Sometimes it seems like there are two extremes: aggressive people who don’t think they can do anything wrong going around stepping on the rights and freedoms of others, and passive people who don’t think they can do anything right allowing themselves to be pushed around and stepped on.

Well, I invite you to join a third class — balanced, assertive people who know they are valuable members of society, who follow their dreams while allowing others the freedom to do and be what they want. These amazing, uplifting people are pleasantly confident and know how to keep a positive-yet-balanced outlook on themselves.

They won’t let anyone step on them, and they don’t need to pound their aggressors into the ground to feel better about themselves. They actually love themselves, and that love allows them to love others fully.

Imagine yourself in this class. That is you! See how easy it is? Nothing in your past has any bearing on you right now. This moment is everything.

There is no past; there is no future. The whole of the Universe is focused right now. And right now, you are a wonderful individual, unique and creative, cool, smart and interesting. What else could possibly be true? 🙂

Teresa Griffith is the author of Love Your Skeletons, an inspirational book about overcoming hurts and mistakes of the past — the skeletons in the closet. She loves to write and help people figure out how their thoughts are affecting their reality. She lives in northern Canada.