"PESSIMISM VS DAY DREAMING"

"Ankita" just had gone through the break up of relationship with her friend & she had lost all her hope in maintaining sustainable relationship with others.....

     Well, I think its sound enough to give us a hint of the negative factor---- "PESSIMISM". In to-days world we all are conscious of this catchy terminology & we also know that people with pessimism perceive anything within the negative perspectives.   

But there are also another type of people around us with different kind of attitude. Look at "Rohit"----------

He is studying in abroad,staying  far away from his family,but still manages his living happily & with full of positive energy. Is it through any magic or you want to highlight his selfish attitude & lack of  gratitude towards his family?

None of these are going to work here as "Rohit" knows the art of "DAY DREAMING". Within his schedule of study, taking care of other social grooming factors, he sometimes keeps himself off from the external environment & through his mind wandering not only fulfils the gap of his family but also feels together.  

       I am not talking about maladaptive day dreaming where people spent time in fantasy most of the time. I am talking about adaptive purpose day dreaming based on positivity, having control over it  with sustained attention & which  can be used for productive purpose.

  Do you know the real fact? It is already established from the research that on an average, we spend 47% of our waking time on day dreaming. 

   In this respect, I might mention the girl  who wanted to know about the impact of day dreaming in "QUORA" .  

 One amazing fact is well known to us .   Discussion about the factors/stimulus which have effect in our life, can never be boring  even  if it is repetitive in nature because who knows after discussion , our one positive step (which we forgot to take) might make our life better? 

We are living in a society which is complex by nature. From childhood , we grow up  through interacting with various kind of stimulus & gain experiences in our life. Within these interactions and activities we sometimes gain & sometime get rejected, become failure in fulfilling our desired tasks or can't access things as per our wishes.

 "pessimism" had been described  by some researchers as a reliever sometimes  for the cause that person in advance with having negative attitude towards accessing desired result, can  prepare himself with appropriate strategy accordingly. Some other studies revealed that it preserves our health too.

Still when it is a matter of keeping us happy , optimistic & moving forward , "day dreaming " have certain advantages over "pessimism'. Let us discuss some points in --

                       --------  " PESSIMISM" VS " DAY DREAMING "

(We will mention "Pessimism" as pm and "Day dreaming as Dd).

1. "Pm" inhibits the analytical skills of a person where as "Dd" acts as a catalyst in accelerating the opportunity for up gradation of that skill. 
2. "Pm" provides negative feedback & person become lethargic  where as through "Dd" person become optimistic & full of positive energy.
3. One gradually losses his creative nature in "Pm" . But we can mention the name of many great persons whose creativity came through "Dd" as  for e.g--- "J.K ROWLING".
4. "Dd" makes you empathetic.       How? --- well, when you use your mind wandering ability to feel with the problem of others, you actually become empathetic & get ready for the intervention for removing of obstacles.  This in turn empowers you to deal with crisis in your forthcoming days.
5. Through "Dd" process  one portion of our brain gets rest(as it is assumed that our brain have two main sides -- analytical(for logical decision) and empathetic(relating to others). When one is in active mode other is in suppressive mode . This make those portion more active.
6. "Dd"  enhances capacity of our brain for storing & recalling information.
7. "Dd" helps us to create positive self image & thus helps to "be ourselves".    "Pessimism" can't do this.

         We always want to avoid unpleasant external stimulus because these can make us feel frustrated, down and depressed. Day dreaming is the pleasant visionary way by which we can feel relaxed .   It is ideal for our self soothing when we face any adverse situation.

     All of our great innovators like -- Aryabhata(inventor of digit O), Einstein, T.Edison, Archimedes, Kekule(inventor of the structure of "benzene', a carbon chain compound) were day dreamers.  Think about great poet  "Rabindranath Tagore " who received noble prize in 1913. Without mind wandering his poetic thoughts would not had come out as beautiful articulation.

According to "Georgia Institute of Technology"  Day dreamers are  being considered as  "smart" & "creative".

Day dreaming is considered as an important part of development of  children. To construct a pleasant visionary, child needs to integrate characters, background, story  & association. These complex activities make a kid-- intelligent, able to explore inner potentialities.

In the language of Amy fries(a renowned psychologist)--- "Day dreaming helps children in process information and explore ideas".

 Adolescents are more in pressure from the environment regarding their career and due to the change going on during their adolescent period. They are getting frustrated with their identity crisis . These might create pessimism  which can be diminished with wonderful +ve  and constructive mind wandering process.

 It had also been seen that positive day dreamer adolescents have higher stress resistance.

Thus day dreaming might be a blessing to us if we consider certain aspects & keep those under our --------

1. Day dreaming is better based on positive approach &  attaining the planning process of our personal goal.    for e.g---  For your tomorrows attaining of singing competition, you plan(by mind wandering) to practice for 2 hours today in the evening & prepare a plan to reach that competition one hour before of the scheduled time to avoid traffic  jam in the street .
2.  One should have the control over his mind wandering.   It is for the sake of preventing adaption of maladaptive daydreaming(excessive fantasy), a behavioural disorder where our personal & professional life might be disturbed. 
3. You should have resilience(ability to bounce back) to self identity after  relaxing through  mind wandering(day dreaming).
4.  Do channelize your negative based day dreaming(fear/anxiety/depression ---worry based fantasies) into positive day dreaming.
5. Engage your positive energy which you got through mind wandering-- in taking action in realism(tendency to view things as they are) to complete your unfinished tasks.
6. Increase of your consciousness about how to utilize day dreaming in more effective way to  help you achieving your goal.           For e.g--- you have lots of  official work to be completed as per deadline. you start visualising about whole steps  like -- planning, sorting, removing barriers for achieving objectives & completion of your work.               

            This will help you to accomplish your work at office faster  as it would seem to                       you repeating those known activities. 

We can convert pessimism into optimism with the help of day dreaming concept. Thus instead finding only negative and dark side, person will be encouraged to see ray             of hope . Mind wandering by concentrating on inner feelings & detaching/disengaging from external environments for the time being,people will love to live a full of life.   

  We are going through an uncertain period through this pandemic, when % of pessimism is increasing due to the loss of lives, economic activities & downsizing of manpower.  But when Industries are reopening gradually,  when Researchers are moving in their next phase of invention of COVID 19 vaccine----- then is not it worth -- living on day dreaming for our forthcoming golden days???

Ref:--

1.Timeline index.com

2.Science daily.com.

3.Psychology today.com

4.World economic forum(weforum.org)