Optimist, Pessimist, Realist? Does It Matter?
This is the 4th of 7 posts I’m doing on the intensive training I took with the Pachamama Alliance. In the last post I discussed evolutionary activism – intentionally choosing to participate in the evolution of our world — and the shift in consciousness it requires. This involves embracing an evolutionary worldview and taking a stand to preserve life on earth and to change the story of the modern world. Part of creating new stories and being effective change agents, is being aware of the perceptual lens through which we see the world. In this post we’ll look specifically at the lenses of pessimism and optimism.
When we look at the news and observe the world around us, it is quite easy to feel discouraged, disheartened, even hopeless and despairing. These painful feelings on top of all the daily stressors we already deal with can feel so overwhelming that we tend to avoid, deny or distract ourselves from them. Who needs all that additional stress? Even when we numb ourselves to a lot of it, we can develop a very pessimistic outlook, albeit one that seems quite realistic.
To make matters worse, the mainstream media preferentially feeds us negative stories and dwells on them making us think the world is only going in one direction – bad to worse. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the media’s motto. This is in part because that’s what we pay attention to. Actually, we do this because of what’s called the “negativity bias of the brain”.
Our brains are hard-wired to pay more attention to negative input than positive input for survival purposes. We need to remember potential threats so we can avoid them or take action to survive them in the future. Think of it as the brain’s tendency to use Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive. Many of us have to fight this tendency to focus on the negative in ourselves, others and life in order to have a happier and more satisfying life.
As I was going through this part of the training I had an “ah ha” moment in which I saw how negative and pessimistic I can be about the situation in our world today, despite thinking of myself as a fairly upbeat person. I first noticed it in my strong reaction to focusing on the good in our world. I felt a strong opposition and the feeling that we need to shake, even scare people out of their numbness and complacency or we’re all doomed. After giving it thought, I did realize that better motivators than fear or doom are hope, awe, empathy, love — which we all experience when we see the good.
And, there is so much that is positive and good – the monumental progress of the evolutionary journey itself, the exquisiteness and beauty of life, the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness, that every day people are acting magnificently and selflessly working for the greater good. This is all just as “real” as the doom and gloom, we just don’t hear about it as much.
The other thing we know about our brains is that they are also hard-wired for caring, empathy and altruism. It’s the basis of our shared core values. This is the more evolved area of the brain that unfortunately gets shut down when we’re functioning out of the older, fear-based, negativity biased, survival part of our brains.
It occurred to me that choosing grounded optimism is the key. I think if we’re awake to our current situation, we feel both pessimism and optimism. But we can choose to live now as we think human beings should live, despite all that is bad around us. We can choose to focus on the good, seek out the good, and start conversations about the good. Today there are so many positive, uplifting media outlets, non-profits, social entrepreneurs, social movements, etc. This is how we change our perceptual lens and help others do the same.
What we focus on is what we will see (it changes our perceptual lens) and what we focus on and see determines how we feel. The science of happiness research reveals that a significant determinant of happiness is what we choose to focus on and do, and that optimism correlates highly with happiness. Therefore, focusing on the good, not the bad, is much more hopeful, mood enhancing, motivating and energizing.
Finally, as Howard Zinn states, “Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win”, there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile.” If not now, when? If not you, who? Let’s do this together!