Chapter 51 Section 2 Becoming an Optimistic Person

When I feel depressed, within an hour, I will put all my troubles aside and become an optimistic person again. Whenever I find myself feeling down about my current situation, I can throw it all away for an hour and become a confident optimist about life. Here's how I do it. I went into my study, closed my eyes, and walked to the bookshelf dedicated to history books.Eyes still closed, I reached for a book—I didn't even know whether I had The Conquest of Mexico by Prescott or The Life of Caesar by Stoney.I still closed my eyes and turned a page casually.Then I opened my eyes and read for an hour; the more I read, the more I realized that the world is always miserable and human civilization is always on the verge of breaking apart.History is full of tragic stories: wars, famines, poverty, plagues, inhumanity.

After an hour of reading history, I can't help but understand that even things as bad as they are now are actually a lot better than they were before.This allows me to appreciate the difficulties I'm having right now, and to understand that the world is constantly improving for the better. The method described above deserves an entire chapter dedicated to it.Read history, and try to extend your gaze a thousand years away - from the point of view of eternity, you will see how insignificant "your" troubles are.