It’s Easy Being an Optimist in Today's World.
I sense you don’t believe me. I wonder why?
The dragon of collective insanity has only taken an inhale. Here comes the fire!
The recipe for optimism and happiness
All you have to do is:
Never turn on the TV ever again. Throw the bloody thing through the window.
Don’t have any social media accounts. Forget they exist.
Block all news, and I do mean all.
Never think about the future at all. Tomorrow doesn’t exist.
Forget that anything past 2019 happened. Just erase it all from your memory.
Don’t look at any prices, ever. Forget the term inflation and anything to do with it.
Use a flip phone with no internet connection.
Focus solemnly on all the good in your life. Ignore the rest.
Eliminate all desires, opinions, and attachments, flowing through life like a drop of water in a river.
Cultivate exactly zero opinions about things that don’t directly impact your life.
You know what - just stop thinking altogether! No mind - happy times.
If you can do that, there’s nothing easier than being a happy optimist. Case closed. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I have always been an optimist regarding humanity as a whole.
I had one counterargument after another for all the negative Nancies out there. The loud majority. Believing we are all brothers and sisters, I saw no reason for diversion between us, anger, and random “isms.” Peace and love, technology and progress, and stats have been proving me right in being an optimist.
Masks off
I will allow myself a moment of naked honesty here and admit it has become hard, excruciatingly hard, to see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. The last couple of years have been trying times for an optimist.
After the whole 2020 terrorizing era, I thought things were getting better, but no, it was just a pause. The dragon of collective insanity has only taken an inhale. Here comes the fire!
I can’t believe what I’m witnessing in the world.
The hate, prejudice, and sheer stupidity boggle the mind! It’s been escalating with no pause in sight. Deary me, what the hell has happened to people? Is this 1939 or the Middle Ages? Did I time travel? Is this a fucked up parallel universe? Are we in the movie Idiocracy? I want a refund!
Choose to be an optimist
Being an optimist in an unpredictable universe with an unknowable future is and always was a choice. A choice we make every single day upon waking up. Yes, things can and do go horribly wrong, but generally, they go right. We just focus more on the bad than on the good.
We can have everything but will focus on the one thing that is missing. We can be entirely healthy but will focus on that one splinter in our finger and complain about it constantly. We can have thousands of wonderful positive feedback, but that one ashole will completely ruin our day.
Since we can’t know what will happen for sure and can’t do much about it, there is no point in giving into pessimism. It makes us feel smart, but it robs us of happiness and hope. It’s the easy path, but the easy path is seldom the best.
Make no mistake - there is always hope!
No matter how bad things look at the moment, and they look absolutely appalling, chances are pretty good that things will somehow work out. No, not necessarily, but maybe, perhaps even probably. So why not hold onto that?
Besides, if there is any truth to us being able to influence our lives and the universe through our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, we might want to feed the light, not darkness. If our thoughts directly, collectively, or indirectly impact life, we might want to paint a pretty picture for our future. In this way, we can contribute without getting directly involved in the affairs of others.
And here’s the thing. Even if you don’t believe that, if you think everything is purely random and your mind has no power over reality, what’s the harm in being an optimist? If you can’t do anything about it, why bother with worry and pessimism?
Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.
Building a bunker under your house can be prudent (if excessive), but spending your whole life waiting for the bombs to fall has proven to be a life wasted.
Buying a gun can make sense for self-defense. But carrying it around with you everywhere, always looking over your shoulder, is no life, and you will attract trouble flashing that thing around.
Having some money and supplies set aside for emergencies is a precautionary measure. Never leaving the house as the world might end any moment now is insanity.
Managing risk is wise. Never taking any risk in the first place is not.
When you meet a new person and fall in love, they can end up hurting you. But if that’s all you’re thinking about, you will create a miserable relationship and force that consequence into reality.
Things can always go wrong, but that shouldn’t prevent us from living, loving, and enjoying whatever we are given. You are here now. Focus on the things you are thankful for. Let the future take care of itself. We’ll cross the bridge that worries us if and when we get there.
We can’t know that life will end up great, but we can trust in our collective ability to gather strength, wisdom, and resolve to make it in the end somehow. We usually do.
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You just delineated the four noble truths!