The Fine Art of Eating Burnt Toast: Finding Ways to Take the Bad with the Good and Not Wasting Chances Just Because They’re a Little… Singed

Let me tell you a story about a really frustrating day.

It was a brisk Spring morning, and I had already woken up on the wrong side of the bed. I was still sore from some very painful period cramps from the night before (which had, subsequently, kept me out on the couch for half the night with a heating pad and a extra-strength dose of ibuprofen), and I hadn’t had my coffee yet. So, I was tired, cranky, and in pain. Not a good combination on any day.

My stomach started to grumble, so I opened the fridge while my coffee was brewing—only to realize we had nothing edible. I mean, sure, there was ranch dressing and pickles, but I wasn’t about to have those for breakfast. My temper started to rise. I looked in the pantry… Not much of a selection, there, either. But we did have one slice of bread. I could make some peanut butter toast. That would satisfy me enough for now until I had a chance to run to the store.

I popped the bread into the toaster and turned to prepare my coffee. I was resting comfortably on the couch when I started to smell it. I had forgotten to adjust the settings on the toaster, and I ran to the kitchen, pushed the lever up, and looked with dismay at the completely burnt piece of toast. My eyes started to tear up in frustration, and I was about to flip my lid—the last inconvenience on an already terrible morning—and then something happened.

I laughed. Willfully. I forced myself to laugh at the incredulity of my ill luck. Not in an angry-with-the-world way, but with actual amusement. I thought, “Okay, so I burnt the toast. I actually like the taste of burnt toast. So… what’s the problem?” I picked up the piece of toast, smothered it with peanut butter, and settled down again with my coffee, completely at ease.

The thing about misfortune is that we tend to dwell on it. It’s not our fault. It’s just human nature. But even though this is instinctual, we have the ability—the wonderful capacity—to shift our perspectives. We can choose not to let something affect us. We can also choose to see things in another light, in a way we maybe hadn’t thought of, before we let anger, frustration, or sadness consume us.

This beautiful little trick of the human psyche is part of willful optimism—acknowledgement of negative feelings paired with the conscious decision to look at things in a more positive way.

I may have been having a bad morning, but that piece of burnt toast reminded me that things don’t have to be as bad as they seem. Stepping back and giving myself a moment to think gave me the ability to check my anger, redirect my mood, and make the best out of the situation. It may even have been a sign (for more on this, read Show Me a Sign: When Seeing Things Isn’t Cause for Alarm, but the Path to Transparency)!

I had been studying willful optimism as a spiritual practice, and it hadn’t really hit me how easily I could apply it until that situation presented itself. I could have lost it—thrown the toast in the trash, stomped around my apartment, spouted some curses, and ultimately ruined my morning. Instead, I chose to eat a piece of burnt toast.

Another example of this came a few days later, when I was on my drive to work.

I had been taking a different way to work than normal because of some construction on my normal route. Now that the construction was cleared up, I was on my usual route for the first time in a few months, when I came to a corner of the road where this nice, lush forest was spread out along the road—only, it was gone. Not the road, the forest was gone. They had chopped down every tree, cleared the land, and there was a sign that read a warehouse was going to be built there.

I was so filled with despair that an entire forest had just been demolished for such a selfish, human purpose that I started to tear up. Why couldn’t they have built the warehouse somewhere else? Why did they have to kill living things in order to do it? If humans continued to just kill all the trees for their own selfishness, there wouldn’t be any forests left in the world!

But I gained my composure before my thoughts completely spiraled out of control, took a deep breath, and thought about willful optimism. I had a choice here: I could be an upset, resentful misanthrope about this situation, or I could think of things from a different perspective.

So, I started to think about the trees, reframing my thoughts from them being carelessly felled to them being repurposed for other means (like building homes that shelter those in need, and play houses that bring joy to children, and the paper I use to write my novels or that make up my favorite books—both activities which bring me and many others intense enjoyment and freedom). I thought that, even in death, these trees are being used in great ways, and that maybe the clearing of that forest was not as sad and unfortunate as it appeared.

That wasn’t to say that I wasn’t upset by the fact that the forest had been torn down for that specific purpose, but if I were to dwell on that negativity, that’s all I would know. It’s all I would feel: the selfishness of humanity. Instead, I chose to feel grateful for humanity’s ability to repurpose in lieu of outright destruction.

Maybe you think my response to a forest clearing is a little woo-woo or out there, but I love nature. I won’t apologize for being distraught at the destruction of a forest, or even the needless felling of one tree. But despite my beliefs, I was able to take a negative situation and reframe it into something positive.

It requires a great deal of effort to be positive when pessimism is your default setting.

Willful optimism is an intentional practice, and you really have to work at it, but if you make it your focus, it will lead to resilience in the face of adversity. It will also help improve your mood, attitude, and frame of mind.

Who knew eating a piece of burnt toast could lead to a better outlook on life?