Many of us have a hunch—though it hasn’t been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt—that the only category of humanity more annoying than street mimes is optimists. You know them: sunny Pollyannas in denial about the world’s harsh realities, skipping along, head in the clouds, and no doubt (we hope) about to step in something unpleasant.
But optimism is much more than a reckless chirping through our days. According to experts, it’s a high-voltage power tool in the life-skills toolbox. Researchers have characterized it as everything from a coping mechanism to a physical patterning of neurobiological pathways established in our earliest years.
Optimists know how to bounce back. They can see a setback as temporary, changeable. If an optimist encounters a recipe she can’t make work, she’s likely to perceive the failure as external and temporary (“I’m having an off day”), while the pessimist makes it internal and indelible (“I’ll never learn to cook”). Victories are just the reverse: Optimists think of them as permanent and far-reaching; pessimists think of them as fleeting and situation-specific.
If you nurture a sense of possibility and the expectation of positive results, you’re more likely to have a life in which possibilities are realized and results are positive. You’ll have a better chance of being promoted, fighting off the cold that’s been going around, and attracting people to you—platonically and otherwise. Pessimistic people are two to eight times more at risk for depression. And researchers have found that optimists are less likely to develop cancer or to die from heart disease.
Almost everyone can learn to be more optimistic, even if that means distorting reality. You can also begin to recognize and catalog the negative messages you give yourself, then dispute those thoughts as if debating an external foe. Gradually, the new responses become automatic.
According to some researchers, each of us has a happiness “set point.” We’ve each been dealt a happiness hand, some of us with higher cards than others. But we can increase our potential for joy by taking steps to get involved with people, causes, and ideas. One of the hallmarks of depression is self-absorption. And so optimism, with its emphasis on seeking and seeing what’s good outside of ourselves and in the world, helps us take those steps.