Optimists Live Longer than Pessimists

A new study (as reported in today's USA Today, March 12, 2009) suggests that you'll live healthier and longer if you're the glass-is-half-full kind of person.

The study analyzed 100,000 women in the Women's Health Initiative and found that optimists -- women who expected that good things, not bad, would happen -- were 30% less likely to die of heart disease during the course of the study than pessimists.

And "trusting" women were 23% less likely to die of cancer than their "cynically hostile" -- or highly mistrustful -- counterparts.

Which am I? Well, I have always considered myself an optimist but a cautious one. However, I do have friends who say I'm negative about possible outcomes. I mean, when I go to an event, I won't bother trying to seek out the closest parking space but will grab the first one I can as long as it's reasonably near.

I certainly don't see myself as "cynically hostile." Do you see yourself that way?