I‘m so excited about tomorrow’s psychokinesis event! This time, I know it’ll go smoothly. If you want to entertain friends or just manipulate matter like some superhero just for fun, you have time to register. Please make sure you have a disposable pie pan (which you’ll learn to spin with just your mind), a metal spoon you aren’t emotionally attached to because you’re going to bend it with your mind, a wine cork and a sewing needle (not sure why we need these), and a bandana to cover your mouth so your breath doesn’t interfere with the pie pan spinning. It’s only $20. Hell, you can bet people 5$ that you can bend a spoon with your mind and make a freaking profit on this! (Just kidding. It’s just worth the fun.) Sign up HERE, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening! 

Throughout my life, I’ve been teased because of my Pollyanna view of the world. I respond with, “I’d rather think the best of people and be miserable some of the time than think the worst of them and be miserable all of the time.” That goes for any life circumstance, too. Lately, many people feel like the world is more full of pessimism. Because of my rose-colored (corrective lens) glasses, I don’t see it. Maybe I shelter myself with the love I receive and give to my family and friends. Maybe I’m just a little slow. For whatever reason, I decided to ask Erik:

Me: How can we become more optimistic?

Erik: Number one, by choice. And you have to make the choice like this isn’t’ going to just turn on overnight because you’ve gained some new belief system. To be more optimistic is the tell your head, “Shut the fuck up.”

Jamie giggles.

Me: Geez.

Erik: And that you’re going to give yourself the opportunity to look on the other side of the coin. So it’s about using your analytical side. If you’re pessimistic, you take the analytical side, and you say, “Okay. Now I want to see it from the opposite side.” So, you analyze it more, but just in a different way. “Show me the other side of the coin. Show me a different way of looking at it.” Then, you have to stay in the moment. You have to stay in the Now, which means that you have to surrender the concept or the belief system that if –

(Long pause)

Jamie: Sorry. He started doing the picture thing again.

Erik: –you had previously walked on hot coals, and you burned your feet, if you were to do it again, you would burn your feet. Humans have this weird thing that if they’ve done this thing one time and that was the outcome, then every single fucking time that they do it, they’ll have the same fucking outcome.

Wow, two F bombs in one sentence. It’s a two-fer. Yay.

Erik: And that’s not the truth, because five years have passed, or three seconds have passed, your equation is completely different than what it was previously.

Me: Hm.

Sounds a lot like quantum probabilities where each thought creates it’s own probable reality.

Erik: You can never duplicate what you have done verbatim or by action because it’s in a new timeframe. So you have to stay in the Now and relinquish the belief system that you can replicate something that has already happened. It’s always going to be a little different. If you walk across those coals again, you might not burn yourself.

Me: On the other hand, you can see the other side of the coin. If you walk across it one time, and you don’t burn yourself, you could burn yourself the next time. So, that has to do with pessimism, too, you know? Right?

Erik: True. We’re dealing with possibilities, probabilities. It’s all about perspective. You have to choose which perspective you want to see the world through.

Me: So you shouldn’t be pessimistic or optimistic, should you? Is that what you’re saying? Because that entails relying on the future.

Erik: I’m saying you should be more focused on where you are or what you need—

(Pause)

Jamie (frustrated): Hee da ho da hee da ha.

Never heard that one before!

Jamie: He’s making some sounds. I have no idea what he’s doing. “da dee da da”…

Me (Laughing): Like that?

Jamie: Mm hm. That’s what it sounds like in my ears. (To Erik) I don’t have any idea what you’re doing. (to me) He’s laughing at me now!

I giggle.

Jamie (to Erik): Screwing with me? Thanks, Erik!

Me: It’s what he does best!

Jamie: Um, I have no idea what he’s doing. Ask him another question.

Me: Okay. So are you saying that we really shouldn’t, I mean, that pessimism and optimism are both not really a necessary part of our lives and that we should be in the Now instead of worrying about whether it’s going to look good or whether it’s going to look bad? Is that what you’re saying?

Erik: Right, but the question you asked was how can you be more optimistic.

Me: Right, but is it good to be more optimistic?

Erik: No, it’s neither good not bad, but if it’s something that that person desires, and they value it so much that they want to change their life to meet that need, then hell yeah, it’s important to them.

Me: Okay.

Erik: I’m not going to sit over here and tell you that it’s “bedda” or less “bedda.”

Me: Well, as you’ve said over and over, there is no good or bad. Anything else on optimism?

Erik: Can’t find it at the bottom of a bottle.

Me: That’s true.

I reach over and take a long sip of my Cab.