We're On the Cusp of Greatness

A Case for Optimism: An antidote to the widespread pessimism

Certainly, a case for pessimism can be made — and it often is: future pandemics, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, loss of jobs to the COVID economic restrictions, automation, offshoring, and costs of government mandates, crushing federal debt and deficits, long-unrelenting racial problems, poor U.S. student performance, etc. To provide a bit of balance, my Psychology Today article today makes a case for optimism, for ourselves, our children, our future.

Another Conversation With Myself About the Coronavirus

My post yesterday was an experiment: a point/counterpoint exchange with myself on coronavirus. On rereading it with fresh eyes this morning, I still felt it was helpful to readers, viewers of my YouTube reading of it, and myself. 

So I paced my house this morning contemplating whether I had more to say that might be of value. My Psychology Today article today presents I’ve come up with.

Life is Beautiful vs Life is Hard and Then You Die: An Internal Debate

As my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer an internal debate on whether life is beautiful or is hard and then you die.
 
Hopefully, it will trigger your thoughts on where on that continuum you believe your life is and then perhaps motivate you to change something.

The Optimist: A Short-Short Story

In an attempt to avoid the pontification and aridity of the how-to article, In some of my PsychologyToday.com articles, I've recently been embedding psychological and other how-to-do-life issues in short-short stories.

Today's offering looks at how a person faces the ultimate challenge to her preternatural optimism.

A Strong Case for Optimism

A Debate: Is Our World Getting Better?

Some people are reluctant to have children because they worry about the world their kids will live in: war, terrorism, ever more fierce competition, the next generation of AIDS, etc. Is the world really going to be net worse or better?
Other people, in making their long-term investments and business decisions wonder whether to be optimsitic about our future.

All of us, if only for our psychological well-being, would like to be able to conclude that the world is getting better. But we don't want to delude ourselves.

So my PsychologyToday.com article today offers an internal debate on whether life will be getting better.

Dismiss Pollyanna: Beware of people who cheer you on with pollyannish optimism

In America, being optimistic is key to being liked and successful.

• Politicians know they get votes with such statements as, “America’s best days are yet to come.”
• Self-help gurus sell more books and get more clients by blithely proclaiming, “Work hard and you can achieve your dreams.”
• Clerics get more parishioners and donations with “With God’s help you can accomplish anything.”
• Friends who say, “You can do it” will be much more popular than those who make a probabilistic assessment, for example, 

Your chances of paying back your student loans let alone making a sustainably middle-class income from that music or art or fashion or broadcasting degree are lower than of a rattlesnake biting you in your bed. Of course, highly talented people who can get into a nationally-top school, cannot be so denigrated. But outside of those few elite schools, artsy degree and certificate programs can, without much exaggeration, be described as bizarrely expensive four-to-six-year summer camps that enable their lackluster students to claim to be pursuing a career.

Imagine a friend saying the previous paragraph to you—You’d probably de-friend them faster than you could say “mean-spirited.” 

Yet being popular should be less important than being helpful. My PsychologyToday.com article today attempts to be helpful even at the risk of your disliking it.