people with pessimistic habits of thinking can transform mere setbacks into disasters. One way they do this is by converting their own innocence into… - Martin E P Seligman

Negative emotions warn us about a specific threat: when we feel fear, it is almost always preceded by a thought of danger. When we feel sad, there is almost always a thought of loss. When we feel angry, there is almost always a thought of trespass. This leaves us room to pause and identify what is going on when our negative emotional reaction is out of proportion to the reality of the danger, loss, or trespass out there. Then we can modulate our emotional reaction into proportion. This is the essence of cognitive therapy, but in a preventive mode.

La vida causa los mismos contratiempos y las mismas tragedias tanto a optimistas como a pesimistas, pero los primeros saben afrontarlos mejor.

Nature has buffered our children not only physically — prepubescent children have the lowest death rate from all causes — but psychologically as well, by endowing them with hope, abundant and irrational.