Painting one's jail cell is more useful, at least it accomplishes something in the outside world - one now has a newer looking jail cell.

But this whole idea that people can entirely change the way of looking at things, some is probably inborn temperament (I don't know to what extent that affects pessimism/optimism certainly introversion/extroversion etc.), some are early life experiences (there are enough studies on that, people are usually carrying around their childhood 40 years later - it's depressing but ...). catherine is a former cheerleader, we were probably with the kids noone but the outcasts wanted if we had anyone to hang out with at all and weren't all alone, or I was. That's not supposed to matter, we are supposed to start adult life tableau rasa, as if we never even had a childhood or an adolescence that effected us beyond what we aspired to then, according to what this culture believes. But come now, we don't have to dwell on it, but is that true we are tableau rasa as adults or were most of our expectations of life and how we deal with it set long ago? I only try to bring what is new and fresh and not entirely jaded to love usually and friendship ocassionally, and oh is that a constant struggle even (and not because bf is such an optimists of course, he isn't and doesn't demand it).