The Vice-Versa
Writing yourself another story by looking vice versa.
2500 years ago, when Socrates was executed with hemlock poison, his wife was crying and exclaiming, “You are not guilty, but you are being executed”.
As a philosopher, he had said to his wife, “What if I were guilty and executed? Was this better?”
Even though I could not decide whether it is empty optimism or actual realism, I started practicing the approach recently.
Every Thursday evening, I take my diary and write the topics of the week that come to my mind. -Even if what happened on that day comes to the fore-
Then I look at them from a parallel universe, a completely different story in which I put myself.
I’ve called this the “vice versa look”.
Here are some examples;
If the problem is a bad work day : I start to think, “I could not have such a job and I would be dealing with completely different unattractive topics.”
If I find my house small, I write another story, such as “I could have a big to-do list waiting for me in a bigger house right now”.
If my travel has been canceled : I imagine that I may have encountered some setbacks on the trip and be dealing with them at that moment.
If there is a problem between me and my friend. At first I look at the situation this way, I may have never known her and never experienced the richness of friendship.
These can be seen as empty consolations that don’t work.
On the other hand, they can also be reasons for gratitude to find peace.
I tend to see it as the latter.
Evaluating the situation that disturbs us according to the opposite criteria creates optimism in our minds.
Optimism opens up a fresh space within us.
Even for a short time, this space is necessary to produce creative solutions or to realize that life is still beautiful with all its contradictions.
I don’t know if it’s possible to think like that all the time, but we can give it a shot from time to time.
Pollyanna, one of my favorite novel characters, was taking this even further.
She was playing a “glad game” trying to see the good in bad things.
In psychological research after the novel’s publication, this optimism was called Pollyannaism.
Pollyannaism was defined as the behavior of contentment and happiness rather than feeling sorry for anything lost.
These studies also showed that people unconsciously tend to focus on good events rather than bad ones, and this increases with age.
However, at the conscious level, they tend to focus on the negative.
In other words, people who do not have a rest also need comfort at the conscious level.
The truth seekers also need a break sometimes.
A Pollyannaism practiced with this awareness may not be the result of self-deception, but rather a way of seeing our experiences as a whole.
It may bring us together with our own realities in a different way.
This provides even greater motivation to find the strength to change.
