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Being Optimistic Isn’t Exactly Realistic

Recently, I met someone who is a self-proclaimed optimist. They live off of positive affirmations and always “look on the bright side”. Their outlook on everything is nothing but optimistic. Sounds good on paper, doesn’t it? However, my experience of trying to “think positive” to answer my issues has led me to believe that this persona is far from reality. Don’t get me wrong, optimism is somewhat elevating and is a prerequisite for accomplishment, but only to a certain extent. You can’t have too much of a good thing.

I begin with positive affirmations like “Choose to be happy”, the type of quotes you would see plastered all over self-help books. I own too many self help books to know exactly  how ineffective these statements have turned out to be. Certain psychiatrists advise many people to start off the day looking in the mirror and declaring a bundle of morale boosts to mask negative thoughts. However, to those with low self-esteem, there is a likelihood of feeling much worse as the brain suddenly becomes defensive due to cognitive disagreement, which reinforces pessimistic emotions and highlights insecurities. So as much as we want to believe in what we are saying, our head often says otherwise.

With that in mind, we seem to forget about the beauty of pessimism. It’s probably not the best approach to take without facing pain front on from certain setbacks. We fail to see any changes that might need to be made, therefore we end up being stuck in the same loop. Not to mention that negative thoughts are necessary for open thinking since they provide balance in situations where we are left at a stand still.

Furthermore, when we think ahead about our aspirations and what we hope to achieve, we paint a picture in our heads of our future situation. You would think that fantasizing about our dreams would allow us to work harder, right? Well if anything, it actually decreases our drive because we have already seen ourselves reaching our ideal outcome so we become smug from over confidence. In some cases, we overestimate our ability because we start to think we have control of our future, but at the end of the day, it is simply out of reach.

Optimists sometimes try their hand at helping others out with small statements such as “cheer up”. As harmless as those two words may sound to the optimist, it only provokes a brewing storm to erupt in the receiver’s mind. The person on the receiving end starts to feel inadequate for feeling down and ends up conveying a reverse effect on what the optimist intended, which was simply to spread positivity. Instead, people need to make an attempt to understand the problem, it won’t be solved straight away but just listening to another’s issues and allowing them the opportunity to open up can be that little bit more rewarding, or if they wish to be left alone, respect their space, but phrases like “cheer up” need to be avoided.

Life is unpredictable so we need to be mindful of situations that come our way, acknowledge any pain and worry that we feel, and accept it and get on with the rest of our lives. After all, we are humans; our minds don’t just consist of one emotion, they have a mind of their own and how we feel is out of our control. We have to be not optimistic, but realistic.

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