May 19, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
This isn't going to be a very scientific answer - but I believe what I'm about to say. Louis Pasteur famously said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." In reverse, having a "bad morning" that sets up a "bad mood" makes our minds unreceptive to opportunities and new ideas. We miss out on things and don't perform as well as we really can. Then, not surprisingly, we feel even worse and the cycle of negativity deepens. Optimism makes us open to new ideas and able to do our best; pessimism does the reverse.

Now how could you test what I've said? If your life were recorded so you could go back over your day and see if you'd missed any opportunities... but it's not. You need some way to measure performance as a function of mood. It may be relevant here to cite studies that have shown that telling people that they are predisposed to do badly on a test actually makes them do badly. A bad mood sends that same negative assessment to yourself. It would be cruel and unethical to deliberately create bad moods in your little sister just to test the hypothesis... but maybe you could deliberately create good moods?