Are you the kind of person who sees the glass half empty, or half full? That's really a classic example of whether we're more optimistic or more pessimistic, isn't it? Some of us see the problems. Some of us tend to see the possibilities by, by our background, by the way we're born or personality and what we've done with that over time our training, but the difference is, of course, our perspective. I love the old story about the pessimists. Farmer, he lived next to another guy with who was a farmer and and he used to get whenever they'd see one another.

He had say, oh, man, look at the sun's out, it's drench it's just absolutely killing our crops. It's gonna patch him. We're not gonna have any crops and the optimists would say, Well, you know, maybe it'll rain. So and then shortly after that it would rain and the optimists would hurry over and say, hey, look at this. He goes, Oh no, now it's gonna flood everything. It's gonna ruin our crops.

And he goes, Well, you know, maybe it's gonna dry out anyway, they went back and forth like this for years and then one day the optimists got a dog a hunting dog actually, that would go out and get duck in the water when they would shoot him down and he said, this this dog had a special ability to not just jump out of the boat but actually run across the top of the water. So he got his friend out in the boat went little duck hunting, and as they're out there, they shot down some knockin. The optic optimist said go and so the dog jumped out of the boat, started running across the water, ran back with a couple duck in his mouth and jumped back in the boat and the optimists looked at the pessimist and said, so what do you say? And the past summer said, can't swim canny?

Well, you get the point. Some of us will find falton anything will will just be negative on stuff. There is really something by the way to have a positive attitude, always positive attitude, but to be a critical thinker, always. So we need the right perspective, there's always balance on these things. But we should always have a positive attitude. And again, we should always be critical thinkers, you don't want to have a positive attitude and let that lead to being a sloppy thinker, a weeks thinker.

And you don't want to have a be a critical thinker who has turns that into or comes across with a critical attitude. Instead, you want to have positive attitude, always critical thinking always. So that's part of what we're going to be teaching throughout this course. But I want you to think about perspective a little bit, I want you to look at a few pictures we're going to put up so when you look at this first one, this is a classic, isn't it? But when you look at this first one of us a lady, it seems like what do you see? I've shown this all around the world and people, you know, debate issues of what they see.

Some see an old woman. Right? Some of you do. Now, some of you are sitting there right now and scratching your head said, I don't see an old woman, I see a young woman. Well, I'm not going to give you the answer right now we'll do this in the Facebook group. But show this around to some of your friends and say, do you see an old woman or a young woman?

Or can you see both, but you can actually see both? It depends on your perspective. And then look at this next particular visual two guys in jail. They're both painting what they see through the prison bars. One of the guys sees the bars. The other guy, you know, sees the beauty outside of the bars and notice how that's reflected in their paintings.

So some of us only see the problem. Some of us only see the possibilities. The reality is there's beauty there, but there are bars in front of them holding them back. So it's a balancing act, but it's a matter of perspective. And then finally, look at this. last image when you look at this what what do you see?

You know the you see two people right ones on an island has been stuck there for a long time the other ones on a boat he's been stuck there without hope of seeing dry land for a long time. So for the guy on the island and he's thinks boat, boat and for the guy out and on the small little piece of earth the island he goes he he's the one that goes boat, the other guy who's out there in the boat looks back and says land land. So bottom line is it's a matter of perspective, right? The land looks really good to the boat guy. The boat looks really good to the land guy because they both provide hope and security and help well it's really a matter of perspective. And so what I want you to understand is that the major Oregon again, in dealing with stress the US stressful way is your perspective.

It's how you see things. And it's your head and your heart. There's a verse in Scripture that I like so much. It says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he, if we have the ability to think rightly, in our hearts, we're going to be the right kind of person. And we're going to be healthy. But as we think in our heart, it's both our head and our heart together.

But that resolves results in our perspective, as we think rightly, with the right perspective in the right areas, then we'll become that kind of person. So the way we deal with stress you stress fully is we cultivate this concept of learned optimism I've introduced to you before and we'll talk about plenty as we go through the course. But we do that consistently. Because we have this positive, rather happy, joyful approach to life, and I'm going to show you how to do that as we go further. But what I want you to do between now and the time we take we do the next video session is to evaluate yourself where your thoughts are, I want you to think throughout the day, think about that stress that you face. Right now in your life.

That thing is really holding you back. And I want you to journal somewhere it will give you a sheet you can journal on but I want you to journal write down where your thoughts go, you can bullet them say, well, this morning I woke up and I thought about this and here's what I thought. And when I saw this person, if there's a person involved, here's what went through my mind and be very specific, whether it's positive or negative. There's no judgment here. We're simply trying to assess where you are. So we can take the Right steps going forward, I want you to journal every day for the next few days and write down your the thoughts that are coming to your mind.

And then your perspective when this happened. What did it make me feel what or make me think? What did I envision? What was my perspective about this? Because those are the things we want to deal with going forward. And then how did it affect not just you with the person but you and how you're related to a spouse or parents or friends or children, whatever you might have in your life or co workers at work?

How did it affect your work? How did it affect your body? What did your perspective do to impact the way you feel and think and what's going on inside of you? Now, the other thing I want you to do is I want you to watch a particular video that we're going to make available here that deals with a concept of happiness. It's a tremendous TED Talk. We're going to simply point you to the link.

So you can see this wonderful TED Talk. And it's one of the best things I've ever seen on happiness. And the whole point of it is, most of us think if we could only achieve something if we could only not have these issues in our life, if we could only have other things in our life, then we'll be happy. And the contention of this author who has been involved with happiness all around the world at the major universities is that it starts with being happy. And I want to go further even being joyful, something that isn't circumstantially conditioned, and even at a deeper level. And the net result is we will become much more successful, much more fulfilled, much more impactful, much more meaningful and purposeful in our lives.

So watch that video, and jot down your insights around that. Again, if you're in our Facebook group, as that type of member then start interacting on what you're going through. share your insights, what you're learning and ask your questions and we'll respond to that and interact with you and also point you to other resources. Okay, got it. Look forward to next time. You got plenty to do between now and our next session.

Ron, signing off