Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

by Martin E.P. Seligman

Fifth, you learn to recognize and question the depression-sowing assumptions governing so much of what you do: “I can’t live without love.” “Unless everything I do is perfect, I’m a failure.” “Unless everybody likes me, I’m a failure.” “There is a perfect right solution for every problem. I must find it.” Premises like these set you up for depression. If you choose to live by them—as so many of us do—your life will be filled with black days and blue weeks. But just as a person can change his explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic, he can also choose a new set of more human premises to live by: “Love is precious but rare.” “Success is doing my best.” “For every person who likes you, one person doesn’t like you.” “Life consists of putting my fingers in the biggest leaks in the dam.”