Lesson #7: Even if things are going to be bad anyway, they will always be better with a positive attitude and worse with a negative one.

Usually I'm not the positivist of the group. Maybe because I don't like to stop being realistic to think that everything will be alright and then get disappointed. But, one of the most important lessons I have learned through OT so far is that even though it is for sure that things are not going to be ok, being positive really helps. To go through a difficult situation will always be easier with a positive attitude and more complicated with a negative one.

A professor talked to us about his friend who had terminal cancer. Even though the doctors told him he just had a few months of life, he decided to take a positive attitude and to not give up. He knew that he would die from his cancer anyway, but chose to live his last days happy. He lived a lot more than the doctors predicted.

After that story I have been trying to remember this phrase when I tend to go back no my negative thoughts: "Even if things are going to be bad anyway, they will always be better with a positive attitude and worse with a negative one".  With each patient that I get to meet through my OT clasees, I confirm this affirmation. I have seen a patient with "complete damage" to the spinal cord at level C5-C6 stand up and walk, and a ALS patient write books and communicate by just moving  his eyes. In both cases their attitudes had been  key elements. I'm beginning to think  this profession would never stop surprising and teaching me.