According to a London-based neurologist who wrote the book ‘Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain’, roughly 80% of the human population is naturally optimistic. It’s just unknown to most of us. So why is that we often have a negative view on how the world has changed over the last decades and centuries? Why we are so pessimistic about our collective future? The pessimist will argue that he or she isn't a pessimist, but a 'realist'. So why is it that true happiness comes through positive thinking?
For a pessimist, happiness comes from acceptance- the acceptance of the negative reality. Instead of trying to rid your mind of all negative imagery, they embrace it, watching the negative thoughts drift in and out of your mind without trying to drown them out. But is this really where true happiness lies? It might be that the key to true happiness is seeing every cloud with a silver lining, in other words being optimistic. People who are optimistic expect more positive events to occur in their lives than negative and that’s one of the reasons it’s been shown that optimists are happier. Well-being and satisfaction are tied to optimism. It’s mostly because of this anticipation of positive or negative. Optimism gives you a reason to live - it creates a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction and creates a positive anticipation of the future.
A cheerful temperament can undeniably help you get through the rough patches that cloud every life, but do people who see the glass half-full also enjoy better health than those who see it half-empty? Yes. Pessimists may state that people who view their life optimistically ‘don’t see the dangers in life until it’s too late’, but the truth is that optimists know more about their own health and about how to be healthy. According to several studies, the simple ability of being positive can improve your physiological and psychological wellbeing. These studies show that optimism seems to have an important role in the association between feelings of loss of hope, depression and suicidal thoughts. For instance, an American study analyzed 6,959 students who underwent a personality test when they entered the University of North Carolina in the mid-1960s. In the course of the next 40 years, 476 of the people died from a variety of causes, with cancer being the most common. Overall, pessimism took a substantial toll; the most pessimistic individuals had a 42% higher rate of death than the most optimistic.
Whilst some say that optimists set themselves up to fail with their unrealistic dreams, others believe that it’s the driving force that leads you to the path of success. Pessimistic ideas have been vigorously challenged in recent years due to it bringing a negativity in life preventing a person from confronting setbacks that are bound to occur in life. When facing a setback, optimists use more effective methods to deal with it, which enhances various coping skills developed in order to combat life’s struggles. It forges persistence; an essential trait required for achieving success. It enables you to handle and put your emotions in check. It allows you to deal with failure constructively.
Sir Winston Churchill states, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. So, don’t ask why? Ask why not?