I hope it doesn't rain

Yesterday I made some calls to arrange for a truck to take some stuff to the convention center for the psychic fair this weekend.

I couldn't connect with the lady whose van we were going to use so I arranged to borrow a pick-up instead and very happily called my boss to tell him I'd be at his place at noon today with the truck.  To which he replied:

Gee I hope it doesn't rain.

Which deflated me for all of 10 seconds after which I bounced back and assured him the weather would be perfect.  Which it was :)

But it got me to thinking about how the natural human inclination is to expect the worst.  I mean think about it - how often do you hear statements like these?

• There's a 30% chance of rain tomorrow
• The unemployment rate is 8%
• About 10% of students drop out of high school
• 50% of marriages end in divorce
• 1% of children are born with *insert condition here*

Why do we always focus on the negative aspect of things?  Why can't we say instead:

• There's a 70% chance of sun tomorrow
• 92% of Americans are employed
• 90% high school seniors will get their diploma this year
• 50% of marriages last
• 99% of children are born healthy

In most cases positive numbers greatly outweigh the negative ones.  Yet we choose to concentrate on the negatives as if they're the most important thing in the world.  Why is this?

I could be wrong but I think we don't naturally think in positive terms because - well because it's not natural.

Most people are barraged with negativity upon negativity from the moment they're born.  Since our beliefs are formed from our experiences, is it any wonder that people turn out to be negative Nellies by the time they're adolescents?  For most of us it's so ingrained in our way of thinking we do it unconsciously, not even realizing how negative we truly are.

There's a whole lot of reasons why I don't think this is a good way to approach life.  I'm not going to go into them here (at least not right now), but suffice to say that since I've made a concerted effort to flesh out my own negative thought patterns I've learned a lot about myself - AND - in changing them to more positive patterns I've experienced steady improvements in all areas of my life.

A better life eh?   Sounds like a pretty good reason to figure this out.  What do you think?