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http://www.grandtimes.com/Become_an_Optimist.htmlIn fact, studies suggest that reality is overrated. People who are the most closely in touch with reality are probably depressed. For example, in one study, depressed people were much more accurate than those who were not currently depressed at estimating the risks of all sorts of disasters befalling them, from plane crashes to their chances of being hit and killed by a bus when crossing the street on any given day. They saw the dangers of life head-on and estimated them accurately. Psychologists call it “depressive realism.” In contrast, nondepressed people are off the mark when asked about the odds of various kinds of negative events-in an optimistic but unrealistic, inaccurate way. When we look at reality stripped bare of the illusions I consider crucial, what we are really seeing is our fundamental helplessness and lack of control in the face of an indifferent universe, our elemental aloneness, our failure to achieve successes that can change the basic parameters of our mortality. And perhaps most importantly, depression and the bald-faced look at reality it provides for us tend to yank us out of our engagement with life, our ability to exist in the moment. Seeing the world this way can even precipitate an existential crisis in which we’re left living in a universe in which none of our actions ultimately matter, in which we’re just going through the motions waiting for it all to end. As psychiatrist Viktor Frankl concluded after surviving the dismal reality of Auschwitz, we must each search for and ultimately construct our own meanings in order to survive. Looking at reality stripped of all of our illusions means being psychically naked, unprotected, and open to despair, depression, even suicide. So despite the emphasis that psychologists and psychiatrists have placed on the importance of “reality testing,” it may be that the illusions involved in optimism are actually more psychologically healthy.
In contrast to overrated reality, it is difficult to overemphasize the importance and positive effects of optimism. As you might conclude from the Rat Race, perhaps paramount among the advantages of optimism is that optimists persevere, with continued-and even more determined-activity rather than inertia in the face of adversity. Optimism is also to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that if you look for that island for over twice as long, you better your chances of finding it if it’s there. Other people notice and respond positively to the outlook of optimists, giving them an advantage in work, love, and play. In addition to perseverance, optimism breeds popularity and the success that so often accompanies it. Optimistic thinking predicts who will be a successful life insurance salesman as well as which basketball teams will beat their projected point spreads in any given season. A candidate with an optimistic stance has a greater chance of being elected president. And optimistic swimmers who are told their times in an important race are worse than they actually are will do even better the second time around.
When it comes to health and optimism, the jury is in. Even rats who are made helpless respond differently to an injection of potentially lethal tumor cells. When injected with a number of tumor cells from which 50% of a control group live and 50% die, only 27% of helpless, pessimistic rats survive, while 70% of rats who have a more optimistic stance remain alive. Pessimism is just as bad for human health as it is for rat health. It makes people more liable to die of heart disease once they have it as well as more likely to get cancer in the first place. In a study of male Harvard undergraduates from the 1940s, high amounts of optimism at age twenty predicted good health at sixty-five. Meanwhile, those who were highly pessimistic at twenty often had left no forwarding address by the time those questionnaires rolled around at age sixty-five.
Perhaps the main reason being optimistic is worthwhile is that it simply feels better. No matter how long you live or what you do with yourself while you’re around, you’ll enjoy life more if you can sustain the illusion of an island up ahead, something to swim toward. You’ll spend more time feeling engaged, hopeful, and happy and less time feeling depressed, anxious, or angry. Given the choice of viewing life through the rose-colored glasses of hope rather than the dark blinders of sadness, anger, and worry, wouldn’t it be far better to assume you’ll find a foothold amid the chaos? After all, even if you go under, won’t you have enjoyed the swim all the more if you sustain hope until the end rather than sinking into despair? Although optimism is the result of an illusion, it is a desirable distortion of reality.Part of the goal on the part of the Reich wing seems to be to keep the oppressed down and discouraged. Well F-THEM I say, no more! I'm getting ready to purchase that bottle of good champagne on November 2nd ~ celebrating the Kerry/Edwards win! Hey, it can't hurt ... Here's me in my new "Rose Colored Glasses" :hippie: who's in?
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