【正文】 t need constant praise and encouragement from others to feel good about themselves. Selfconfident people participate in life enthusiastically and spontaneously. They are not affected by what others think they should do. People with high selfesteem are not hurt by criticism。 they feel it confirms their inferiority. They also find it difficult to be pleased by pliments because they believe they are unworthy of praise. A shy person may respond to a pliment with a statement like this one: You39。s not true. It is clear that, while selfawareness is a healthy quality, overdoing it is detrimental, or harmful. Can shyness be pletely eliminated, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overe shyness with determined and patient effort in building selfconfidence. Since shyness goes hand in hand with lack of selfesteem, it is important for people to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths. For example, most people would like to be A students in every subject. It is not fair for them to label themselves as inferior because they have difficulty in some areas. People39。t feel that you must converse with everyone. Concentrate on talking to only one or two people. You will feel more fortable. 3. Guilt and shame are destructive feelings. Don39。s feelings. Feeling ashamed acplishes nothing. Instead, accept the fact that you have made a mistake, and make up your mind to be more sensitive in the future. 4. There are numerous approaches to all issues. Few opinions are pletely right or wrong. Don39。t isolate yourself from people. Try making one acquaintance at a time。s not allow shyness to block our chances for a rich and fulfilling life. Two Ways of Looking at Life Your attitude strongly reflects your outlook on life. Take a closer look at that connection. Are you a pessimist—or an optimist? Can you see how your way of looking actually does color your attitude? And remember: change your outlook and you change your attitude. The father is looking down into the crib at his sleeping newborn daughter, just home from the hospital. His heart is overflowing with awe and gratitude for the beauty of her, the perfection. The baby opens her eyes and stares straight up. The father calls her name, expecting that she will turn her head and look at him. Her eyes don39。s eyes don39。t seem to respond to noise at all, he says. It39。t hear. I39。s all right, the wife says, pulling her dressing gown around her. Together they go into the baby39。s name, jingles the bell, claps her hands. Then she picks up the baby, who immediately bees lively and makes happy sounds. My God, the father says. She39。s not, the mother says. I mean, it39。s brandnew. Her eyes don39。t the slightest movement, even when you clapped as hard as you could. The mother takes a book from the shelf. Let39。s in the baby book, she says. She looks up hearing and reads out loud: 39。t be alarmed if your newborn fails to be startled by loud noises or fails to turn toward sound. Reactions to sound often take some time to develop. Your pediatrician can test your child39。t that make you feel better? Not much, the father says. It doesn39。t hear a thing. I39。s because my grandfather was deaf. If that beautiful baby is deaf and it39。ll never forgive myself. Hey, wait a minute, says the wife. You39。ll call the pediatrician first thing Monday. In the meantime, cheer up. Here, hold the baby while I fix her blanket. It39。s work. He follows his wife around the house, thinking about the baby39。s answering service asking for an early appointment Monday. She spends the weekend doing her exercises, reading, and trying to calm her husband. The pediatrician39。s spirits remain low. Not until a week later, when the baby shows her first startle to the loud sound of a passing truck, does he begin to recover and enjoy his new daughter again. This father and mother have two different ways of looking at the world. Whenever something bad happens to him—a call from the bank manager, a disagreement with his wife, even a frown from his employer—he imagines the worst: bankruptcy, jail, divorce, and dismissal. He is prone to depression。 his health suffers. She, on the other hand, sees bad events in their least threatening light. To her, they are temporary challenges to be overe. After a reversal, she bounces back quickly, and finds all her energy again. Her health is excellent. The optimists and the pessimists: I have been studying them for the past twentyfive years. The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case. The optimists believe defeat is not their fault: circumstances, bad luck, or other people brought it about. Such people are not bothered by defeat. Confronted by a bad situation, they perceive it as a challenge and try harder. These two habits of thinking about causes have consequences. Literally hundreds of studies show that pessimists give up more easily and get depressed more often. These experiments also show that optimists do much better in school and at work. They regularly exceed the predictions of aptitude tests. When optimists run for office, they are more apt to be elected than pessimists are. Their health is unusually good. Evidence suggests they may even live longer. Twentyfive years of study has convinced me that if we habitually believe, as does the pessimist, that misfortune is our fault, is enduring, and will undermine everything we do, more of it will happen to us than if we believe otherwise. I am also convinced that if we are in the grip of this view, we will get depressed easily, we will acplish less than our potential, and we will even get physically sick more often. Pessimistic prophec