Think negative

A friend was playing a fool on the road today. She was doing a little jig as we were all glad that class ended at 12pm. Another friend was driving up the street and this friend then playfully went in front of the approaching car. Sensing the harmless playful mischief, the driving friend also decided to go along and playfully swerved her car towards the friend.

Throughout the whole scene, I couldn't hold back my horror and my heart literally did a little flip as the image of the probable and highly possible consequence of all this flashed through my mind. Alarmed, I immediately expressed my concern and told my friend that what she did was a really bad idea. "What if she accidentally knocked into you?" To which she replied "You're so negative" in a somewhat jokingly manner.
(I actually wanted to add "Accidents happen not because someone intentionally and consciously knocked into someone- if it's intentional, they would call it homicide. Accidents happen because someone ACCIDENTALLY and unintentionally knocked into someone. Hence, the word 'ACCIDENTS'. )

I was reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch when I came across this chapter about how we all have to be prepared.  "Another way to be prepared is to think negatively". This sentence reminded me of the earlier incident. Being negative is not necessarily a bad thing. It also brought back an earlier advice by an uncle to my brother and I. I still remembered the conversation.
Uncle: Everybody likes to say Think positively. But for me, I like to think negatively. Because only then can I turn the negative into a positive thing.

This is what Randy wrote "Yes, I'm a great optimist. But when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst-case scenario. I call it "The Eaten by Wolves Factor". If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about because I have a plan in place if they do."

I learned today, that people shouldn't be accused of Thinking negatively, something, which tends to bring about a negative connotation BECAUSE Thinking negatively is in fact, a preparation to enable positive things to happen.