Optimism: the Underrated Life Skill
How hope and confidence in the future can inspire the present
Growing up, optimism never seemed like a foreign concept. As kids, we woke up every day excited to venture into an unknown future. We dreamt of all the things we could be, told everyone about them, then went on to acting them out. Some days, we decided we were going to be magicians while other days we thought we could be pirates who rule the world and occasionally we settled for fairies or surgeons (because what’s a childhood without at least a million aspirations). We saw endless possibilities, and no one could tell us otherwise. The world was our oyster.
As we grew older, we became exposed to society’s expectations and ideas or perceptions of success which resulted to us narrowing down our ambitions. We decided that being astronauts, rock stars or clowns wasn’t realistic and succumbed to universal standards of life. We went in search for education and pursued fields in the hope of mastering skills that would help us secure the future we desire.
This is the trajectory that most people’s lives have followed and our optimism up to this point has been the most essential factor for progress. Every time you think about pursuing something, you get the courage to go for it because you believe or hope that it will work out. Now think about how many times you have had to do this -how many paths did you have to take to get here? How many goals have you set out based on your optimism?
There was once a traveller who was walking from a village in the mountains to a village in the valley. As he walked along, he saw a monk working in a field, so he stopped and said to the monk, “I’m on my way to the village in the valley, can you tell me what it’s like?”
The monk looked up from his labour and asked the man where he had come from. The man responded, “I have come from the village in the mountains.”
“What was that like?” the monk asked.
“Terrible!” the man exclaimed, “no one spoke my language, I had to sleep on a dirt floor in one of their houses, they fed me some sort of stew that had yak or dog or both in it and the weather was atrocious.”
“Then I think that you will find that the village in the valley is much the same,” the monk noted.
A few hours later another traveller passed by and he said to the monk, “I am on my way to the village in the valley, can you tell me what it’s like?”
“Where have you come from?” enquired the monk.
“I have come from the village in the mountains.”
“And what was that like?” the monk asked.
“It was awesome!” the man replied, “No one spoke my language, so we had to communicate using our hands and facial expressions. I had to sleep on the dirt which was cool as I’ve never done that before. They fed me some sort of weird stew and I have no idea what was in it but just to experience how the locals lived was great. It was one of the best experiences of my life.”
“Then I think that you will find that the village in the valley is much the same,” the monk noted.
This has always been one of my favourite fables because it shows how our attitude can have an impact on the way we view obstacles that often get in the way of our goals. Our optimism is the fuel running the never-ending prospects and goals we set out for ourselves. Although it does not guarantee that we will achieve the things we hope to, optimism gives us a fighting chance. It lifts us and pushes us to try repeatedly after countless attempts. Optimism takes no account of the present, instead it acts as a source of inspiration and hope that enables us to claim the future.
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.” — Noam Chomsky
