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Realistic Optimism?

Down-to-earth Optimism Isn’t “Fooling Yourself”

Optimism can help you to see that, despite actual and potential calamities, you can see misfortunes in a better light and see that you can handle them, helping you create an attitude to better deal with adversities and help you to ward them off in the future.

However, optimism can easily be taken to pollyannaish extremes. Thus, you can tell yourself, “Everything will happen for the best!” Or: “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better!” Or: “I’m able to do anything I want to do!” This kind of unrealistic optimism amounts to “fooling yourself,” because, as indicated in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, you are quite a fallible human, and life will continue to bring you many misfortunes.

Instead of pollyannaism, however, you can choose to have several more realistic forms of optimism, such as these:

1. “I can’t act infallibly and I can’t control external conditions, but I can control my reactions to mistakes and to unfavorable situations. I largely control my emotional destiny. I can refuse to take bad conditions too seriously and can also refuse to choose to blame and damn myself for my depression.”

2. “Yes, I have a good many shortcomings and my life has a number of limitations, but I can handle these adversities, often improve them, and expect good as well as bad things in the world. This, too, shall pass!”

3. “Some exceptional misfortunes can happen to me – such as rape, cancer, hurricanes, or a war – but they will only occur rarely. If they do, I can still live and be reasonably happy. I can practically always find some activities that I really enjoy and keep looking for more of them – yes, even if unusual difficulties occur in my life!”

Optimism like this can be realistic rather than pollyannaish. So don’t give up on optimism – only on that which is taken to unrealistic extremes!

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Adapted from Ask Albert Ellis: Straight Answers and Sound Advice from America’s Best-Known Psychologist, by Dr. Albert Ellis.  Available at online and local bookstores or directly from Impact Publishers, Inc., PO Box 6016, Atascadero, CA 93423, www.bibliotherapy.com or phone  1-800-246-7228.