Optimists tend to be more stress-hardy, more happy, draw less illnesses and live longer.
Pessimists tend to be much less happy, draw more illnesses and die earlier.

The founder of Positive psychology Dr. Martin Seligman distinguishes pessimism and optimism by differentiating the attributional styles of people.

Selfabsorbed pessimists take life's challenges [job loss, disease, divorce] as a personal, pervasive, permanent threat (the 3 Ps).
- They take difficult situations in life as personal.
- They see problems as pervasive.
- They see their problems as permanent. ["It is never going to change.]

Realistic optimists take life's challenges more stress hardy by seeing them as possibilities for change for the better.
- They see things realistically as a challenge for ingenuity and change.
- They keep a sense of sovereignity – in areas where they (still) have it.
- They have a commitment to a world view that expands possibilities.

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Zitate zum Thema Möglichkeit / Possibility

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Zitate allgemein

Was in einem schwachen Feld eine Möglichkeit ist,
wird in einem stärkeren Feld zur Wahrscheinlichkeit
und in einem Feld der Unendlichen Macht (wie etwa der Göttlichkeit) zur Gewissheit.
Dr. David R. Hawkins, FU Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man, Kapitel 3, Inhalt und Kontext, S. 68

In den Experimenten über Atomvorgänge haben wir mit Dingen und Tatsachen zu tun, mit Erscheinungen, die ebenso wirklich sind wie irgendwelche Erscheinungen im täglichen Leben. Aber die Atome oder die Elementarteilchen sind nicht ebenso wirklich. Sie bilden eher eine Welt von Tendenzen und Möglichkeiten als eine von Dingen und Tatsachen. Werner Heisenberg, Physik und Philosophie

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Zitate (engl.) allgemein

As I do these things, so shall ye do them, and greater things. John 14, 12 (NT)

The present is pregnant with the possible. Erich Fromm

The three laws of prediction

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably very wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishible from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, The three laws of prediction, Profiles of the Future, essay Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination, originally published 1962, reprinted Warner Books, March 1985

The average is indicative of a trend, not of a necessity or of a universal truth. Often, it is those outside the norm, the exceptional ones, who point to the truth of what is possible. Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the secrets of daily joy and lasting fulfillment, pg. 138, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2007

Short version of The three laws of prediction

"It's completely impossible — don't waste my time";
"It's possible, but it's not worth doing";
"I said it was a good idea all along."
Arthur C. Clarke, The three laws of prediction, Profiles of the Future, essay Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination, originally published 1962, reprinted Warner Books, March 1985

Strive for the impossible. That is where the new will emerge. Nicanor Perlas

Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it. Chinese proverb

Lead, follow or get out of the way. Air Force saying

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate. Steven Wright

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Englische Texte – English section on Possibility

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It is impossible...

* * *

It is impossible to make others see where they have made a mistake.
It is impossible to be carried to a secure and peaceful harbor on a ship
crafted by anxiety or fueled by fearful feelings.
It is impossible to gain real happiness at the expense of someone else's pain.
It is impossible to genuinely elevate yourself by pushing another person lower.
It is impossible to take advantage of others without living in secret fear of them.
It is impossible to realize the fulfillment of the Divine as long as we remain
filled with ourselves.
It is impossible to rise above any fear or worry whose root we have not found,
uncovered, and removed from our own present misunderstanding.
It is impossible to receive forgiveness in life without having learned what
it means to freely forgive.
It is impossible to wish another person any kind of ill, for any reason,
and not be made sick ourselves.
It is impossible to resist or hate any condition in life and
learn from it at the same time.