I like to think that the majority of the time, I’m a pretty positive person. Of course, there are some days and instances that you just can’t fake a smile, but I feel as if those days are necessary.
Overall though, you shouldn’t live throughout your entire life being negative all of the time. Not only does it bring others down around you, but also it definitely can’t be good for you to be such a Debbie Downer.
The online journal Psychology and Aging seems to disagree with me. They just conducted a study that said that people who have low expectations for what the future holds might end up living longer and healthier lives than people who expect happy things.
Wait, this is bizarre, isn’t it? Apparently, researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany examined data collected from 1993 to 2003 of approximately 40,000 people aged 10 to 96. Researchers then interviewed respondents and asked them to rate how satisfied they were with their lives and where they saw themselves in five years.
So this has been quite the ongoing experiment, huh? Five ears after the first interview it was found that 43 percent of the oldest group has underestimated their future life satisfaction, 25 percent had predicted accurately and 32 percent had overestimated.
Based on the average level of change in life satisfaction over time for this group, each increase in overestimating future life satisfaction was related to a 9.5 percent increase in reporting disabilities and a 10 percent increased risk of death.
I don’t know. I still stand by the idea that being positive and happy as often as possible is the key to a successful life. What do you guys think?
Ally | Elite.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
