“I wish I could be optimistic,” she said. “But with wars, racism, the economy, and the results of the election, I can’t find it in me. I go from being anxious to being depressed, with quite a lot of drinking and snapping at my husband in between. Then, there’s my body falling apart. I’m not getting any younger. Everything is falling to pieces. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is kicking my ass.” I wished she could be optimistic too. I knew she was expecting me to help her find a way. I was her therapist. Finding optimism is my job; but I was up against a law of the universe that says everything will degrade; and she was a scientist, who would never go for anything soft-minded and saccharine. "Those same laws of thermodynamics actually create life,” I said, in a desperate attempt to suggest something she could believe in. “When energy flows from high to low, following that Second Law you mentioned, it doesn't just dissipate - it creates patterns and complexity along the way. When the sun burns it enables life here on earth. Yes, entropy increases overall, but within that flow, order arises. Things do fall apart - but that creates space for new things to emerge." “That doesn’t help me any. The whole universe could progress and leave us all behind.” Pessimism has a good defense. It’s not easy to score, but I’ll tell you how to do it. First, let's understand why we want optimism to win in the first place. Why Should Optimism Win?Optimism isn't just about feeling better. It’s a superpower that fundamentally changes how you experience and interact with the world. Optimism is a biological advantage. Research shows that optimistic people literally live longer, healthier lives. Their immune systems function better. Their hearts work more efficiently. When stress hits, their bodies recover faster. It's as if optimism provides a protective shield against the wear and tear of daily life. Want to get more done? Optimistic people have a secret weapon: they see setbacks as temporary and specific rather than permanent and pervasive. When a project fails, they don't think "I'm a failure" – they think "That approach didn't work. Let's try something else." This resilience leads to better problem-solving abilities, higher productivity, greater career success, and increased persistence in the face of challenges. Optimistic people tend to be relationship magnets. They build stronger connections, communicate more effectively, often emerge as natural leaders, and handle conflicts more constructively. Think about it: would you rather spend time with someone who sees possibilities or someone who only points out problems? Perhaps most importantly, optimism transforms how you experience life itself. Optimistic people report higher life satisfaction, a deeper sense of purpose, more meaningful experiences, and better ability to find humor and joy, even in difficult times. Conversely, pessimism will take you all the way to nihilism and despair. Nothing matters, nothing can improve, why bother trying? It's a terminal illness of the spirit that should set off alarm bells when it takes hold. When you become more optimistic, you don't just change your own life – you become a force for positive change in the world around you. Your optimism inspires others to believe in possibilities, creates environments where innovation can flourish, and helps others maintain hope during difficult times. Is it always easy to maintain optimism? No. Is it sometimes a struggle? Absolutely. But letting pessimism win means giving up on the possibility of change, growth, and improvement. That's why I have three game plans besides my lecture on thermodynamics. There's the Slow and Grinding Ground Game, Spiking the Gatorade, or we can try the Hail Mary Pass. The Slow and Grinding Ground Game
I could also call this the Fake It Until You Make It method. It requires you to act optimistic before you feel that way, in expectation that the feeling will come along later. I’ve found that it does, but you’ve got to keep at it; you can’t expect results any time soon. It seems like a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Spiking the GatoradeIf you don’t think you’re up for the Slow Grinding and Ground Game, you might start to think about Spiking the Gatorade. That’s my name for taking drugs. You can Spike the Gatorade of the opposing team by taking antidepressant medication. If it works, the pessimism will lose a step and you’ll gain on it. Conversely, you can spike your own Gatorade by taking a stimulant such as cocaine, crystal meth, or a simple cup of coffee to give you an edge over the forces of entropy. Or you can spike the Gatorade of both teams and put everyone out with sedatives such as opioids, tranquilizers, or alcohol. This will make all the players forget about playing the game. They’ll nod off in the huddle. I hasten to say this is a dangerous way of playing the game. It can easily backfire if you take too little and fall into greater despair, take too much and cause more problems, or get side effects. Clearly, using street drugs takes Spiking the Gatorade to a whole new level. Consult with a doctor before you Spike the Gatorade so you use the right compound and take the right dosage. The other concern with Spiking the Gatorade is that you can become dependent on it. You have the grave risk of becoming addicted to substances such as anxiolytics, cocaine, crystal meth, opioids, tranquilizers, and alcohol. You cannot become addicted to antidepressants, but that doesn’t mean you won’t rely on them. Winning by Spiking the Gatorade is different from winning by other means. Besides, you can’t always get the drugs you come to rely on, which forces you to play the game on its own terms, only now, you’re hungover. As much as I dislike the Spike the Gatorade option, sometimes you’ve got to use it. The other team is playing for keeps. The fight between optimism and pessimism is a life and death struggle. That’s enough to justify cheating a little when you can get away with it. Sometimes, when both steady progress and quick fixes seem inadequate, we need something more transformative. This brings us to our final strategy, the Hail Mary Pass. The Hail Mary PassIn football, no team attempts a Hail Mary Pass until they have to. The situation must be almost hopeless before the team sends all its receivers into a single spot in the end zone, where they will gather with all the defenders, and throw the ball there in hopes the right team will catch it. It’s an act of surrender, but the kind that offers a glimmer of hope. They’re desperate because everything else they’ve tried to do, got them nowhere. The first step in making a Hail Mary Pass is a willingness to say, "I give up, my way isn't working." The Greek word for taking this step is kenosis, emptying out your own will so you can replace it with something new. But it’s not the only word for it. We shrinks talk about “radical acceptance”. AA has “hitting bottom”. Christians talk about "dying to self", or "carrying your cross". It’s all over Islam. The very word Islam means “submission to the will of God”. The Buddhists call it Anattā, or “no self”. Users of psychedelics describe it as a "stripping away of ego-defenses” before you can be reborn. What is it you're giving up? In the case of the persistent pessimist, she’s giving up the attempt to predict or control the future. She’s not trying to be optimistic, either. She’s acknowledging that the whole project of making a forecast is fruitless. The future is out of her control. If the first step of the Hail Mary Pass is throwing the ball up for grabs, the second step is catching it, embracing a new point of view. The first step is necessary before the second step can take effect for the same reason you must first clear the land before you can build anew. The second step always involves the identification of some kind of power greater than yourself, whether it be a deity, the dynamics of your AA group, or the Laws of Thermodynamics. At the very least, your new higher power may be your newfound optimism. After all, as I was saying, optimism is a superpower that enhances nearly every aspect of human life. That alone should qualify it as a higher power. People who actually pray to a standard benevolent God have a home field advantage in this game against pessimism. They already believe in an unseen, satisfying order that's looking out for them and ensuring that all their tears will be wiped away. They don’t know how it will come to pass, but they have faith it will. But, what if you're not religious? Will the Hail Mary Pass be successful if you don’t say your Hail Marys? I'm not saying that you have to believe in a certain God or pray in a certain way for it to work. From a psychotherapist’s point of view, all religions cultivate optimism. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, Baha'i, Confucianism, and Tao - all believe in a satisfactory unseen order. Even many of those who call themselves "spiritual, not religious" have in mind something that sorts it all out. However, from your point of view, it does matter which unseen order you believe in. It must be something you can embrace, a ball that fits the curve of your hands. In other words, you may be able to say your Hail Marys to any divinity or a generic, unknown divinity, and it could still work out the same. That is what I was trying to convey when I lectured my client about thermodynamics. I had hoped that could be something that even the most hard-nosed scientist can get behind. As it was, she was able to embrace a kind of Nietschian love of her fate. For Nietzsche, loving fate wasn't about waiting for a divine plan to reveal itself, it meant loving everything exactly as it is, including the entropy and the chaos. In catching this particular Hail Mary Pass, my client found something as good as religious comfort - she found a clear-eyed way to say yes to reality itself, its endless dance of things falling apart and new things emerging. This was her satisfactory unseen order: the magnificent complexity of the universe itself, operating exactly as it should. But first she had to let go of the ways she thought it should be. If the Hail Mary pass is successful, the result is a conversion experience. Before, you were blind to optimism - but now you see. Your optimism was lost - but now it's found. With every conversion, no matter whether it's a religious conversion, a conversion to optimism, or a genuine awareness that you've become powerless over your addiction and need to put yourself in the hands of a higher power, all conversions rely on this process. The third step of the Hail Mary Pass is the celebration in the end zone after it’s caught. There’s nothing like it. Converted people report a sudden influx of joy upon their conversion, no matter what they’re being converted to. Everything comes together. You see new possibilities and are energized. This third step is necessary to reward you for going through the first two. The more such rewards you receive and the more intense, the more likely you'll be able to persist against the temptations of pessimism. The fourth step comes a little later, when you have a more sober realization of the benefits of optimism. The victorious football players command a higher salary. After the Hail Mary Pass is completed, then all the tasks of the Slow and Grinding Way come naturally. You don’t have to remind yourself to practice gratitude, you’re just grateful. You don’t need to reframe so the positive is in the picture, it's already there. You’ll set goals easily because you believe you can achieve them, you’ll celebrate better because you don’t have to feel as though you snuck a cookie out of the cookie jar hoarded by fate. You’ll already be surrounded by positive people because they naturally flock to other positive people. You’ll take care of yourself because you’ll want to live longer and see the wonderful things that will come. There will be no reason to self-destruct. What If?What if you put up the Hail Mary Pass and it doesn’t work? What if you fail to catch it at the other end of the field? That’s because you haven’t secured your optimism well enough. You haven’t protected it as the valuable thing it is. Pessimism has come by and punched it out of your hands. It’s more likely to happen if you haven’t yet had a chance to reap the rewards of your transformation, if you haven’t enjoyed the third and fourth steps involving celebration and the collection of rewards. That’s why it’s important to do the dance in the end zone and why it’s important to use your new optimism to see what it can do for you. People who can believe in an established unseen order have institutionalized techniques for protecting the ball. In AA this means going to meetings, working the steps, talking to your sponsor, and helping others. In religions, this means prayer, ritual, discipleship, and charity. Secular people are more on their own. They must find their own way to cultivate their newfound optimism. If you take psychedelics to arrive at a spiritual awakening, you must come down from the mountaintop and find a way to integrate your epiphanies into everyday life. If you fail to complete the Hail Mary Pass, you can take comfort in the fact that your life is not a football game and time has not yet run out. Put up another pass or go back to the Slow and Grinding Ground Game and gut it out. If it looks as though the forces of pessimism will win, Spike the Gatorade so you live to play another day. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy The Reflective Eclectic, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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Monday, November 25, 2024
How Optimism Can Win
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