Lessons from Optimists
Author: Ken Homer Issue: 2022-08-03
Lessons from Optimists
by Ken Homer
Moods are to emotions what weather is to climate – they are predispositions to action. There’s no denying that our species is going through a tumultuous phase right now. Most people are aware of the existential threats unfolding all around us. Many of these threats are human-created, and thus my hope is that they can be human-dissolved. The mood of a great number of people is suboptimal for coping with such threats and this mood is fed and amplified to a large degree by both social and broadcast media. To address existential threats, people need access to moods of wonder, curiosity, ambition, and possibility.
A few years ago, I was invited to create and teach a course on Coaching Skills for Wellbeing at San Francisco State University. In preparing that course, I realized that I am usually an optimistic person, but that my long-term view of humanity’s prospects is darkened by what I know about the various threats to our biosphere. These threats paint a grim picture of our future, and we don’t yet know how to solve them. My long-term view frequently compromises my ability to stay buoyant in my daily life. I decided to interview some self-identified optimists to see if I could learn from them how to better balance my short-term optimism with my long-term sense of dread. It was a fun and interesting project, and I did indeed gain some significant insights into how to be more balanced. Here’s a summary of my anecdotal findings.
Who I Spoke With
- Six people
- All over 50
- Three Women and Three Men
- Three People of African Descent
- Three People of European Descent
Q: When did you realize you were an optimistic person?
- Five out of six said they’ve been optimistic their whole lives.
- One reported she had to learn how to be optimistic.
- Two stated that although they are optimistic people, they struggle with depression and anxiety.
- All spoke of how being optimistic increases their sense of agency, possibility, satisfaction, joy, love, and fulfillment in life.
Q: How do you maintain an optimistic outlook in the face of daily challenges – big and small?
- Have a sense of The Big Picture – asking: does this really matter in the long run?
- Developing a daily gratitude practice – it is amazing how well this works.
- The Serenity Prayer – accepting what I cannot change, focusing on what I can change.
- Being mindful of what I allow in my life – avoiding negative and toxic conversations, people, news, and environments.
- Seeing events as neutral – it’s not what’s happening, it’s my attitude about what’s occurring that determines if something is good or bad for me.
- Recognizing that I am not my past, it’s how I respond to what happens to me that matters.
- Allowing myself to deeply feel my emotions so they can move through me.
Q: What specific practices do you turn to when you find yourself tested?
Top Responses:
- Exercise – I get moving and get my heart rate up.
- Diet – I make sure I am avoiding junk foods and eating health supportive foods instead.
- Time in nature – being outdoors opens up different perspectives.
- Calling friends and family who will lift me up.
- Meditation – sitting or moving: accessing a calmer, quieter space within.
- Self-compassion – I am one person, not everything is up to me.
- Accepting and reframing – asking, how can I turn this to my advantage?
- Be able to vent – have people you can vent to who will listen and say: OK, now what?
- Steering by rear view mirror* – remembering challenges my ancestors overcame.
- Prayer – faith in God, Nature, a Higher Power, or a Benevolent Presence.
- Blending with – the practice of stepping into and moving with the resistance.
- Zooming out – expanding the timeframe to 10,000 years.
- Practice dwelling in not knowing, giving space to complex and confounding things.
- Envisioning the world if all the terrible things I think of don’t actually come to pass.
- Paying attention to my body and my thought loops.
- Knowing that everything changes in its own time, accepting that I can’t push the river.
Q: When have you been hard pressed to stay optimistic?
Dealing with:
- Major health crisis.
- Loss of loved one.
- Difficult family matter/member.
- Coming to grips with own mortality.
- Coping with depression.
Q: How do you use optimism when dealing with transitions?
- Seeing challenge as opportunity for growth.
- Recalling lessons I’ve learned when I’ve gone through other rough patches.
- Keeping my sense of humor – life is too tragic to take seriously.
- Talking out my feelings with trusted friends or family members.
- Telling the truth about what is happening – don’t sugarcoat or succumb to denial.
- Fully feeling any difficult emotions while knowing that they will pass, and that I will grow from the experience.
- Focusing on what is possible and what I can do now with what I have, where I am.
- Reaching out and asking for help.
Q: How do you use optimism when dealing with transitions?
- Building momentum from small things.
- Acknowledging fear and listening to love.
- Being insatiably curious!
- Staying in touch with childlike wonder.
- Focusing on what I can do and letting the rest take care of itself.
- Never give up! If you never give up, you will never fail.
- Being my own strengths-based coach – I believe in me!
Comments from interviewees:
- Being optimistic doesn’t mean everything is great all the time, I struggle with hardships like everyone else, I just have a perspective that sooner or later the hard time will pass, things will work out, and I’ll feel good again. And so far, this has proven true.
- I learned early on that the world is a harsh and impersonal place where both miracles and horrors take place. If my state of mind is dependent on things in the world working well, I am setting myself up for failure. I do what I can to make a positive difference and then I let go and let the world take care of itself.
When I inquired what she meant, she stated that her ancestors have been in the USA for over 150 years, arriving from Africa as slaves. They were thrown into a world where they had no legal rights as human beings (see SCOTUS’ Dred Scott decision). They did not give up hope but persevered and so when she is feeling overwhelmed, she draws on their strength and fortitude because, as she put it: “if they didn’t give up despite being virtually powerless in the face of horrible repression, I can’t let them down by succumbing to my despair when I have so much more agency than they did.”
** “Steering through the rearview mirror” came from a person of African descent.*
Related:
- Ken Homer (author)
- 2022 (year)
- Topics: Tools and Platforms