Do You Think A Positive Attitude Can Be Learned Or Is It Just Something You Are Born With?

Definitely can be learned but also a person has to have a certain genetic background favoring the learning. Some people are born fighters but even those get crushed down by life when the going gets tough. But they re-bounce pretty quick and get back on their feet whereas for others might just take a little longer to recoup.
I was not born a fighter but I’ve learned how to be one and still learning as there’s just no other way around it if you really want to live and not just survive. I would call it an instinct for living because surviving – we call all do that even without fighting, it happens, people survive depression, survive anxiety, post traumatic stress….
I don’t wake up in the morning and say “wow, what a lovely day, can’t wait to get to work”. I wake up and say “it’s another day soff, get out of bed and make it through the day.” I do keep my positing outlook going but I crack at times just like everybody else when I just don’t feel like getting out of bed at all. Sometimes somebody else helps me out, with a nice word or a smile, it doesn’t take much to realize that at times you just have to get going for someone else’s sake, cause someone else needs you in their lives. What a great feeling is to be needed and wanted.
So optimism can be learned, taught and then passed on to others that feel a little down at times, a little lonely and a little not loved. Cause at the end of the day, it’s those “others” who make life so worth living and so worth loving. And for their sake I can be as much optimistic as they want me to be.

I think it can be learned.

Well, my family thinks the glass is totally empty and that watery-looking stuff half-filling it is a fluke. But I’m an optimist. So it doesn’t seem to be genetic. I was very cynical until I started high school (yes, a cynical middle schooler. How obnoxious!)
You need to force yourself to look on the good side. Yes, force. After a while, looking at the good becomes more natural, you see more good, you become more optimistic. Having (or developing) a sense of humor not based in sarcasm can help too.

I think some people are born with a better attitude than others, but I’m absolutely sure that attitudes can be changed. I used to be a glass half empty person and now I don’t know too many people more optimistic than me.
The key is basically to always hold your head up and smile a lot and tell yourself positive things are going to happen even when you don’t really believe them. Once you start faking these emotions for long enough you’ll get so used to faking them that they’ll become real. It sounds kinda crazy, but it really works

Absolutely it can be learned …but more often than not negative attitudes have to be unlearned first (discarded)…. and replaced with positive ones…
as always one sees what one wants to see….
So often we get what we expect to get …

There are definitely elements of both “nature” and “nurture” involved here. Kids from the same family, brought up in the exact same environment, can have completely opposite outlooks. You always hear stories about people brought up in awful circumstances or with disabilities who still turn out as positive as they could be, and people who seem to have every advantage who don’t. You can definitely be born optimistic or pessimistic. I don’t know if you can learn or unlearn this. You can probably learn to express yourself optimistically, and to live that way, but you’d probably still be pessimistic deep down and would have to “remember” to be optimistic.

In my opinion it can be learned. I used to be very negative. I started being more positive and good things started happening. I have some medical issues that I am dealing with but my doctors have told me that my attitude is going to help me recover faster. I used to think that the glass was half empty. I am not quite ready to say it is half full but I will say that someone has been drinking out of it.

I believe that we have to fight to remain sane in this day and time, force yourself and go with your interbeing that speaks to you ,we all can become negative but postive gives more results. Take Care!

I think it can be learned and practiced with enough motivation. Some people, though are born with it–it is called ignorance. They are just too ignorant to really be unhappy. Odd, but desirable at the same time.

anyone can develop a positive attitude, others are just born with it. I used to be extremely positive, i wonder where all of that negative energy came in…

Yes I do think so, as often we learned pessimism from our family. I suffer the same thing as you! Glass half empty!
I did study (very diligently) Louise L Hays tapes, Cd’s and books, and it worked my life changed.
But
Its something I have to work hard on and continue daily.

You can learn it. It comes with positive reinforcement. If no one gives it to you, then you have to give it to yourself. Tell yourself daily how wonderful life is, what a great day it is going to be, how well you will treat others regardless of how they treat you, and tell yourself that you can do things and that you are wonderful.
By the way, that was a wonderful question from a wonderful person.

it isnt something you r born with but if u r pessimistic( i am i know:) u will always know that there is always 2 sides of a story..kind of..:))

Our lives r not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens.U can view even pessimistic things as positive just by changing ur attitude towards it. Self motivation also helps