“IF YOU ARE ALLOWED ONE WISH FOR YOUR CHILD, SERIOUSLY CONSIDER WISHING HIM OR HER OPTIMISM.” Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate and Psychologist
“Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular,” Kahneman says. “They are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.”
OPTIMISM IS MORE THAN WISHFUL THINKING.
Psychological researcher Carol Dweck and others who have studied optimism and optimists find that, “Optimism, is not just a belief that things will get better; it’s a strategy for making things better. It’s a practice that changes the way we interpret adversity.” If you start out thinking a problem is solvable, you are more likely to pursue the solution.
SO, SHOULD OPTIMISM BE YOUR NUMBER ONE WISH FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS?
OPTIMISTS MAY LIVE LONGER, HEALTHIER LIVES.
In his book, A Wealth of Well Being, behavioral economist Meir Statman cites studies showing that “Optimists live longer. The most optimistic women lived an average of 14.9% longer than more pessimistic ones, and the most optimistic men lived 10.9% longer than more pessimistic ones. Optimism hastens recovery from cardiovascular surgery and diminishes chronic pain, diabetes, and carotid atherosclerosis.”
DO OPTIMISTS IGNORE REAL PROBLEMS?
Some people are skeptical about optimism, because the world and our lives seem full of challenges and problems. And if you watch the news, the risks seem to be increasing, not decreasing. Optimism skeptics (pessimists) argue that optimism is naive and ignores reality.
Obviously, optimism is not always easily justified.
But, in the big picture, an optimist, looking in a clear-eyed way at today’s greatest challenges, can also remember that over the course of history, humanity has solved the unsolvable and invented the unimaginable.
During the initial shock of the COVID-19 crisis, blogger Morgan Housel wrote that “Necessity is the mother of invention, so our willingness to solve problems is about to surge.” He continued, “Capitalism works because profit is an incentive to improve. When the incentive becomes survival – literal or financial – that force goes into overdrive.” Rather than deny the problem or sink into hopeless pessimism, he gave a rationale for optimism in the face of a global pandemic. As it turns out, he was right.
PROBLEMS ARE OFTEN MORE VISIBLE THAN PROGRESS.
Historical perspective provides a strong mental and emotional foundation for rational, educated optimism. In his bestseller The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley cites many examples of problem solving and human progress over the arc of human history and, particularly, over the last century. His research shows that long-term trends describe dramatic improvements in global health, economics, and freedom, as well as air and water quality. In addition, the rate of improvement has been increasing over the last 50 years.
“FOR 200 YEARS PESSIMISTS HAVE HAD ALL THE HEADLINES, EVEN THOUGH OPTIMISTS HAVE FAR MORE OFTEN BEEN RIGHT.”
WHY DOES THE NEWS ALWAYS SEEM SO DIRE?
Are things really that bad? Steven Pinker, writing in The Guardian, observes that there is “...a belief – near universal in American journalism – that ‘serious news’ can essentially be defined as ‘what’s going wrong...’ That in turn provides an easy formula for pessimists on the editorial page: make a list of all the worst things that are happening anywhere on the planet that week, and you have an impressive-sounding – but ultimately irrational – case that civilization has never faced greater peril.”
Ridley echoes Pinker’s findings when he concludes, “For 200 years pessimists have had all the headlines, even though optimists have far more often been right.”
HOW TO DEVELOP & CHOOSE OPTIMISM
Because optimism is good for us and contributes to a rational view of the future, what can we do to counteract our natural pessimism and nourish an optimistic mindset? One helpful method is reframing.
Think back to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. In an instant, it seemed the world was spiraling out of control. In the U.S., most people hadn’t heard of the virus in January yet found themselves locked in their homes by the end of March.
How long did it take for things to get back to normal, or possibly even better than before COVID? That’s hard to say, because recovery varied and was more gradual than the initial onset. But sooner or later, most people returned to work. Indeed, unemployment numbers today are better than in 2019. Investment markets recovered, hitting new all-time highs by late 2020. Innovations developed in response to COVID – including virtual meetings, flexible work arrangements, high quality air-filtration, and MRNA vaccine technology – have become commonplace.
Focusing on the history of human progress helps us to reframe our negative thoughts and reminds us that humans have solved harder problems in the past. Reframing is just one of the strategies psychologists have found to be helpful in cultivating optimism and hope.
Practice hopeful thinking. Envision what you can do to achieve a desirable outcome despite what is happening around you. This might include an exercise goal. Regular walks provide physical and mental health benefits, as well as a sense of progress.
Choose to hang out with hopeful and optimistic people. Positive and negative emotions are contagious. Consider who you spend time with, what you read or who you listen to – in person or online. They all can impact your emotional health. Social media algorithms cater to fear and negativity, because posts that shout “Fire!” get more clicks and likes than those that share good news. News outlets funded by advertising have become experts at pushing our fear and anger buttons to attract more attention, which leads to more revenue. Pinker states the obvious, “Consumers of negative news, not surprisingly, become glum.”
WE CAN CHOOSE TO WISH OPTIMISM FOR OTHERS. BUT EVEN BETTER, WE CAN CHOOSE TO BUILD AND PRACTICE OPTIMISM IN OUR OWN LIVES, BRINGING OTHERS ALONG WITH US.
Which friends and colleagues are more optimistic? Which are less pessimistic or panicked by current events? Who encourages you over a meal or in a meeting? Who makes you laugh? Choosing to spend more time with these people reinforces our positivity, which is yet another strategy for developing optimism.
Express gratitude. Regular journaling about who and what you’re thankful for along with sending thank-you notes helps generate hope for the future and an optimistic mindset.
David Booth, founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors and a generous philanthropist coined the phrase, “Educated optimism is a cure for anxious uncertainty.” My sense is that many of us could benefit from this cure. Also, the world needs rational, educated optimistic voices more than ever to counter today’s pervasive apocalyptic pessimism.
Thank you for reading and here’s to an even better world tomorrow!