Optimism is a trait that is set to become more common, based on Winston Churchill's famous quote that "a pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."
The poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote that “Your life is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life. Not so much by what happens to you, but by how your mind looks at what is happening.”
The attitude he mentions above is what we call optimism.
Optimism is both a philosophy and an attitude. It is a philosophy of how we interpret events that happen in our daily lives. It's about how we move forward. It is a way of life—a perspective or lens through which to evaluate the desirable and undesirable events that occur in our daily lives.
Not everyone may be an optimist, but everyone can become one. At least that's what positive psychologist Martin Seligman explains in his book Learned Optimism:
“A pessimistic attitude may seem so deeply ingrained that it may remain forever. However, I have discovered that pessimism can be avoided. In fact, pessimists can learn to be optimists, not through mindless tricks like whistling a happy tune or uttering platitudes, but by learning a new set of cognitive skills.”
However, the question we need to ask is not “how can I become more optimistic” but “what daily principles can I live by to become more optimistic by nature?” This reflects what Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, once wrote: “Don’t explain your philosophy—embody it.” And the only way to embody a philosophy is to practice it day in and day out.
So what are these principles of optimism?
Given that the term “optimism” comes from the Latin word Optimus, which means “best,” it may be appropriate to first look at the region where the word was first discovered.
In The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City, the authors argue that for many years historians, political analysts and sociologists have debated the question of what made Rome more powerful than its neighboring cities. Without taking into account one key factor behind its initial rise: the geology of Rome.
They demonstrate how Rome's innate core qualities were its proximity to a major river and close access to the sea, its hills for view and plateaus for defense. And also clean drinking water from springs in the Apennine Mountains - gave the city many geographical advantages compared to its surrounding environs. areas. Rome itself played a decisive role in the rise to power.
In other words, Rome begat Rome. And in the same way, only you can give birth to yourself.
Always believe it's possible
Principle #1: An optimist understands the fundamental rule: seeing is not believing; rather, believing is seeing. And so he develops a mindset around this mantra: “My beliefs can change what I see and perceive.”
In her book, Mindset, psychologist Carol Dweck explains that people operate from one of two mentalities, a fixed or growth mindset.
With a “fixed mindset,” we believe we have no control over our growth, intelligence, or creativity. And through this belief system, we strive for the illusion of success, feeling comfortable and avoiding failure at all costs.
However, with a “growth mindset,” we thrive in the face of adversity and view failure as a springboard for growth. A growth mindset is based on the belief that your core qualities are something you can develop through your own efforts. People with a growth mindset have a desire to teach and learn, a willingness to give and receive feedback, and the ability to confront and overcome obstacles.
What does optimism have to do with it? Your way of thinking, based on the belief system you have developed over time, determines how you see yourself and the world around you.
The view you take of yourself profoundly influences how you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you achieve what you value.
In other words, seeing is not believing, but believing is seeing.
If you believe that a solution to your problem actually exists, you will be able to see opportunities and therefore be much more inclined to take action. And isn’t that what optimism is all about? Choosing to believe that the future can still be wonderful, seeing the possibility of that future, and then intentionally working today to make that future come true.
As Alan Watts once wrote, “faith is above all openness, an act of trust in the unknown.” Believing in the possible is what leads us to see all the possibilities that could be. An optimist believes and he sees.
Who is an optimist in life?
From the outside it seems that an optimist is a person who never loses heart .
And even if he has completely inopportune problems with transport, he is late for an important meeting and also forgot his mobile phone at home, this will not at all darken the optimist’s routine joy. But actually it is not.
An optimist can become depressed, upset, and even cry. But at the same time he will believe in a better outcome and future prospects.
Yes, maybe things really aren't that good right now. But very soon the difficulties will be resolved, giving way to new joys.
An optimist views difficulties rather as tasks.
In his eyes, this is not a blow to pride, not an evil fate, and not some kind of universal injustice.
Every problem is an obstacle that requires the right approach and strategy to overcome it. So why be upset? He can step over depression and go straight to action.
The main question of an optimist is: “What can I buy?” Unlike pessimists, who consider losses, optimists focus on gains. They understand that any change in positions, circumstances and parties opens previously closed corridors that can be used.
An optimist in life, he is attentive to details like no other. He notices individual positive factors and sums them up, with the result that the pleasant little things outweigh the central problem.
Do the work
Principle No. 2: An optimist does not engage in wishful thinking; an optimist works consciously and hard.
The philosophy of an optimist is not based on wishful thinking. The optimist's philosophy is based on work.
Yes, you can choose to believe in a better future, and yes, you can see all the ways it can manifest itself, but the truth is that the wheels won't turn unless you stand up and push them. You may believe that one day you will succeed as a writer and can see yourself as an acclaimed author, but the truth is that this book will not write itself—you have to sit down in a chair and write.
What stops you from getting work done is resistance. This is something we all experience, especially when it comes to taking action to achieve an outcome we truly desire. Sometimes this manifests itself as fear, self-doubt, or procrastination. Other times it manifests as delusional wishful thinking.
After all, imagination will only take you so far. Yes, it excites you and gives you a mountain of motivation, but the only way to sustain it and channel it into fertile soil is to sit down and do the work.
Focus on yourself
Principle #3: An optimist does not obsess over what he cannot control. An optimist focuses only on what he can influence - himself.
- You don't control people's opinions of you.
- You have no control over the weather and natural disasters.
- You don't control the global economy.
- You have no control over what other people decide to do.
However, you can control how you respond to all of the above. How do you react when someone is playing a status game with you? How do you distance yourself from people who don't share the same values as you.
In other words, what you control is you. Your opinions, aspirations, habits and actions you take. Your mind and the way you think. What you can control and change is who you are as a whole. Trying to control or change anything outside of this realm only leads to more anxiety, anguish and frustration - you will cause a storm and drown in it.
Optimism is based on the fundamental belief that whenever we are faced with a situation that causes suffering, we have two options at our disposal. We can change the current situation, or change our attitude towards it, by first changing the way we interpret it. And the only way to do this is to learn to focus only on what you can control.
As the Roman and Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote in A Guide to Life:
“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: some things are under our control, and some are not. The main task in life is simply this: to identify and separate things so that I can clearly tell myself which external ones are not under my control, and which have to do with the choices that I actually control. Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. This is achieved by ignoring things that are beyond our control."
This last line is crucial: master yourself and you will become the master of your life.
Who is an optimist
A classic metaphor for what it means to be an optimist is the example of a glass filled with 50% water. The first person (optimist) believes that he is half full, and the second (pessimist) believes that he is half empty. The reality remains the same, but its interpretation is radically different. An optimist does not wear rose-colored glasses, but perceives reality as friendly.
A classic optimist among philosophers was Gottfried Leibniz, who believes that the world in which man lives is the best possible.
What “optimist” means can be easily illustrated with an example. If an optimist or an optimist (what this is is not always clear to the average person) experiences some kind of failure, he perceives it as an accident. Therefore, he does not give up at the slightest difficulty.
Smiley is a symbol of an optimist
Interestingly, even the attitude towards suffering differs from person to person. In Buddhist culture this is the norm. Without suffering there will be no development, so we must learn to accept it. That is, they even have a different attitude towards emotions. Buddhists do not consider a bad mood, in our opinion, to be such a thing. They have a more optimistic attitude. There is a negative emotion - let it be. It is necessary to influence the cause, and not the condition itself.
A pessimist usually does not try to solve a problem, he tries to remove an unpleasant emotion. That's why there are so many alcoholics among pessimists. The problem is not being solved, but is only getting worse. The man is trying to drown it out. It becomes easier for a while, but then negative emotions return with a vengeance.
Ancient philosophers formulated the so-called paradox of hedonism: the more you strive for positive emotions in themselves and try to avoid negative ones, the less of the former and the more of the latter.
Important ! Pessimists often say that they are realists. It is not right. Realism is a sign of a sane person. You shouldn’t think ahead, you need to deal with the current situation. It's just that optimistic people can see opportunity in trouble and approach problems with humor. To be fair, their mood may also drop. There may be a sad face, they may shout and sometimes make too much of difficulties. All people. Simply those who have a positive outlook on life rise up and can send all problems into the distance.
Love more than you fear
Principle #4: An optimist lives and works out of love, not fear.
There is a universal truth: you can act and live your life from a fear-based belief system or from a love-based belief system. Live in fear and you will experience limitations associated with resentment, arrogance, insecurity and greed. Live in love and you will discover an abundance of courage, confidence, fortitude and generosity.
Inaction, stagnation, and acting as if the world owes you something are rooted in fear. Action, growth, self-compassion and kindness are rooted in love. Fast living and haste is a way of life born out of fear. Live slowly and respect the process out of love.
To love more than you fear means to make room for poetic mistakes in your life. It's taking yourself a little less seriously and laughing a little more. Doing something for the sake of true joy, and not for the sake of probable reward. It’s facing failure and thinking, “So what? I failed and now I'm much closer to success than ever before."
One of Nelson Mandela's quotes:
“What matters in life is not what we lived. How we make a difference in the lives of others will determine the meaning of the lives we lead.”
To make a difference in the lives of others, we must first learn to love fearlessly. We must remind ourselves that we are Beings trying to make sense of this human experience. And all that matters at the end of this journey is not what you achieved. It was about how much you loved yourself, how much you loved the people who walked this path with you, and how freely you gave to them.
All that matters at the end of this journey is how deeply you have touched the souls of those around you through your actions and creations. But, of course, you cannot touch someone with fear, but only with the light of fearless love.
Make it a habit to be solution-oriented.
Principle #5: An optimist is solution-oriented. He believes that there is always a solution and therefore only looks for solutions to problems and not more problems than existing ones.
In a talk entitled "5 Rules to Follow to Find Your Spark," Simon Sinek shared a personal story that led him to a major realization in life:
“There are two ways to see the world. Some people see what they want, and some people see what prevents them from getting what they want."
People who see what they need go after it. When they encounter obstacles, they keep going until they find a way around it because deep down they know what they want.
On the other hand, people who see things that prevent them from getting what they want only see obstacles. Consequently, they take no action.
People of the first group are optimists. There are no people of the second group.
If you want to be in the former, you have to become someone who is solution-oriented. This means that whenever a problem arises, you don't panic, complain, or allow your thoughts to think "this is the worst that can happen." No. Instead, you remain calm, composed, and immediately begin asking questions that will lead you to the right decisions.
You train yourself to become more resourceful by constantly asking the following question: “What can I do right now to solve this problem?”
Is it good or bad to be an optimist?
Kinesthetic - what kind of person is this?
It all depends on the degree to which this quality is expressed. If an optimistic person sees only the positive aspects without noticing the negative ones, this can play a cruel joke on him. After all, any negative assessment is designed to protect a person, to identify a threat and eliminate it.
Optimists are more likely to be successful
Therefore, any extreme is harmful. Excessive pessimism prevents you from achieving success and makes life miserable. Excessive optimism leads to carelessness or gambling due to underestimation of the degree of possible risks.
Moreover, reasonable optimism is closely related to good health because:
- It prevents learned helplessness. Therefore, a person is more likely to see a doctor if something is wrong with his health. A pessimist will not do anything to improve his health, because he will not believe in success. He won't even have the desire to improve anything.
- Promotes a healthy lifestyle. A pessimistic person is prone to addiction. He may pass on junk food or drink excessively alcoholic drinks, hoping to improve his mood. An optimist knows how to rejoice on his own; he does not need harmful stimulants.
- Knows how to establish relationships with people. Therefore, he has more friends, in general he is more successful, because his friends really help him.
Optimism is the key to a successful and happy life.
Always be grateful and accepting
Principle #6: An optimist is grateful and accepting, allowing himself to fully feel what he feels, because that is how he overcomes all his suffering.
Optimism is not positive. Positivity means that everything is fine, even when it is not. This is just nonsense. Positivity means: “Forget about your problems, look on the bright side and move on.” This is repression, not liberation.
Optimism is simply finding positive meaning in negative events—it is a form of resilience. And the way to do this is to use positive emotions during times of stress to better cope with existing negative emotions.
In their research on optimism and resilience, psychologists Michelle Tugade and Barbara Fredrickson explain that “resilient people use positive emotions to recover from stressful encounters and find positive meaning in them.”
This is because they work on using a wider range of emotions to develop optimism:
- How can I use the energy created by this stress and anxiety to help me better cope with the challenges I face?
- What can I learn from this stress and how does it help me change, grow, or find new solutions?
In fact, negative emotions serve a specific purpose; they try to tell us that something is wrong. Listening to them and further exploring why we feel the way we do gets to the root of the problem.
So the idea here is to give in to the flow of life—to work through it, not against it. By being grateful for everything that happens, you accept it. And by accepting it, you will transcend it. As Eckhart Tolle writes in his book The Power of Now:
“Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”
Is it good to be them?
Optimism has both pros and cons . People who idealize the idea of an optimistic outlook on life are deeply mistaken.
pros:
- Optimists do not give up . The outcome of a situation always depends on how active a person is. And the optimist wins in this regard, since he will not wait for a successful combination of circumstances and will begin to act himself. At the same time, he will not be stopped by the fact that circumstances are not in his favor.
- Optimists tend to look at a problem through an analytical lens. They are not simply driven by the emotions that can surge at the sight of an impending crisis. They analyze the situation very carefully and in detail in order to grasp the pattern of its development and find the best way out.
- Optimists have weight in society. They attract people and can be great friends and leaders.
That is why they prefer to give leading positions to optimists; they are willing to help and try to establish contact. - Optimists are able to take risks. They, unlike pessimists and even realists, have faith in their own success. And even in case of failure, an optimist will be able to get out of the situation with dignity, turning it to his advantage.
- An optimist is a priori hardworking. After all, he has to resist every day the desire to give up all attempts and fall into the arms of depression. He also constantly takes more and more new steps to achieve his goal, without stopping in the face of difficulties. And there will be exactly as many attempts as it takes to overcome the obstacle.
- An optimist knows how to break ties with the past. He lets go of his failures and tries to use each new day as a chance to start over from scratch, while giving 100%. An optimistic person will not project past disappointments and failures onto current situations with similar variables.
Minuses:
- Conceit .
In some cases, belief in one's own success borders on arrogance. A person takes unjustified risks, fired up by the idea of success. He naively believes in a happy outcome, and when he realizes that he has not coped with the task, he cannot find a way out of the problem due to his lack of preparation for such a result. - An optimist is not prepared for failure . Maybe he's not afraid. But at the same time, he also does not consider the possibility that his idea or activity may fail. Therefore, any failure can take an optimist by surprise.
- One-sided view of the world. Very often, optimists ignore the obvious disadvantages of reality, the true (negative) nature of things and the negative sides of human characters. All this happens because the radical optimist ignores the facts and replaces them with a positive illusion.
- Excessive gullibility. Optimists are easy to exploit, fool, and deceive. After all, a person who holds an optimistic view does not suspect another person of selfish intentions. An optimist may well believe the ardent assurances and promises of a deceiver, becoming a victim of his own worldview.
- Suppression . Some optimists suppress negative emotions. Instead of looking for a reason to be happy, they simply lock away their sadness, anger, resentment and other feelings. All these unpleasant emotions disturb the radical optimist on a conscious and unconscious level, poisoning his life. But at the same time, he cannot give himself permission to broadcast “bad” feelings to the outside world.
- Pessimistic intolerance. Often optimists sin in that they cannot find a common language with pessimists and realists.
They get into arguments, actively promote their views, insist, or simply break ties with pessimists. This makes life very difficult for some representatives of an optimistic outlook, who, due to work obligations, cooperation or other factors, are forced to deal with people who are in a negative mood.
See the beauty
Principle #7: The optimist constantly seeks and reminds herself of the imperfect art , beauty and poetry that surround her.
This seventh and final principle corresponds to the majesty of the Quirinal Hill, the highest of the seven hills of Rome. It is an honest embodiment of all the previous principles that lead you to this: the gift of seeing beauty in all that is.
Think about it:
If you choose to believe that your aspirations are possible, you will see beauty in your imagination. If you choose to do the daily work that will get you there, you will see beauty in your efforts and progress.
If you choose to focus only on what you can control—yourself—you will see the beauty that can only be found within yourself. And if you choose to love deeply and completely, you will see the beauty in becoming fearless.
If you choose to be solution-oriented, you will see the beauty and joy in solving problems. And if you choose to always be grateful and accepting, you will see the beauty of life's many blessings and the meaning of your efforts.
This last principle itself embodies what it means to live a life based on the philosophy of optimism: like life itself, we are imperfect and impermanent, and this is what makes us so beautiful.
Practice the Seven Principles of Optimism and You'll Become Naturally Optimistic
Optimism is about acknowledging today's challenges and giving yourself permission to hope even when you feel very anxious, anxious, unhappy or afraid. It's not about ignoring your negative feelings about an impending crisis, but about finding a way to keep them from overpowering you.
Optimism is simply believing that the future can still be wonderful. Even if it doesn't seem plausible right now, then work intentionally today to make that future come true.
How to communicate with an optimist
A person who is used to being despondent sometimes does not understand: who is this optimist? He thinks somehow strangely, unrealistically. At least that's what he thinks. Sometimes it is quite difficult for a pessimist to communicate with a person who has a positive mindset, because the difference in their worldview is too great. A pessimist is more conflicted, so he can spoil the nerves of an optimist. Therefore, the recommendation is this: you need to learn from him. Any person with a positive mindset has a valuable behavior pattern that helps him overcome any difficulties in life.
Optimist man
It is useful to communicate with optimists in order to receive support from them. It is important not to parasitize here. It's better to become one yourself. As a short-term measure, seeking reassurance from an optimist can also be helpful.
Optimists are more flexible and solve problems situationally, while pessimists tend to constantly play it safe and perform hundreds of rituals to feel normal. This can also complicate their relationship.
To learn how to communicate correctly with an optimist, you need to understand how he thinks. To do this, it is important to communicate more with such a rare, but this makes it even more valuable, category of people.
