Optimism and a Fresh Start

As much as I moaned about the end of summer and how I'll miss the warm weather, it seems I may not really know myself. You know those people that say fall is their favourite season, fresh start, end of the heat, yadda yadda? My reaction to that was one of, ummmm, confusion? Fall means winter is coming; that means cold weather, short days, and snow. What is wrong with them?

Well as evidenced by my behaviour the past couple of days my 70 year old self may just be a fall person. Returning home from our family cottage weekend on Sunday night (a day earlier than expected), I actually felt excited about what I would accomplish on Monday, a bonus day! And oh boy did I get stuff done.

I bounced out of bed and headed out for a run, my first in months. Yes it was pretty slow, and only 3 km, with a walking break in the middle but I RAN and I was elated! You see, 2025 has been a year of injuries. In February, while running in Mexico, I was challenged by a couple of stray dogs, and while backing away I toppled backwards. This fall resulted in an out of alignment tailbone and months of hamstring pain. In June, as the hamstrings were settling down I had a dramatic fall from an e bike, leaving me with a sprained ankle. Lo and behold, as that sprain healed the opposite knee started to give me grief. That was a month ago, and over the past few days everything just started to feel good again. I am optimistic about getting my running going again. Yay!

Next on the agenda - my desk. I am normally a pretty organized person, so the mess my desk was in was embarrassing. I had receipts piling up, and so many random papers that needed to be dealt with. Of course this mess covered a not very healthy layer of dust! A short few hours later the paper was cleared - recorded, filed or shredded and my desk was shiny & clean.

In short, yesterday was a flurry of productive activity. I even washed all my reusable grocery shopping bags. Who even am I and how am I feeling? Optimistic. And that my friends is how our brain gets wired for resilience and longevity.

I was in the midst of all this fresh start activity when the Super Age email came in with the heading "Optimists Live Longer". How timely. Think of this statement: "In a large, longitudinal study conducted by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine and published in PNAS, women and men with the highest levels of optimism were significantly more likely to live past the age of 85." In fact the article goes on to cite another ever larger study that shows optimists living not only longer, but better quality lives. Well, sign me up for that!

Are you an optimist? Do you typically look at things in a positive light? I would say that I am and I do, but I suspect we all have moments of negativity. Truth be told, my injuries this year, topped with turning 70 had me feeling a little down at times. I wondered if I would ever run again (such a passion of mine), I realized that I truly am entering my twilight years. I believe I am generally an optimist but there are days... Sure, some days I struggle to run but overall, even with my very troubled lungs I am healthy, active and full of energy. It is worth taking a look at our pessimism/optimist balance.

It's hard to find a pic for optimism but I like this image!

Here's an abbreviated description of the 10-20 minute Super Age exercise to increase your optimism:

• visualize your best future where everything has gone well in a very fulfilling way.

• Spend 10-15 minutes writing it down in detail

• Take 5 minutes to visualize all of this unfolding. Revel in all the good feels.

• Repeat this practice weekly choosing different areas of your life (family, finances, relationships etc.)

I took a shot at this last night and found it was quite fun. I visualized myself as my mother looked at 88 (because I look just like her) and then I visualized my family celebrating my 100th birthday! Saw my kids and grandkids 20 -30 years older and added a few new members, as my family is still growing. It was a great exercise and actually had me excited for the next decades!

If you are interested in the full description of this very interesting exercise here's the link. I hope you will give this exercise a try. It can only reap positive results!

Pat xo