I have often mentioned that I am a pessimist by nature, but the only resolution I’m making this year is to spend more time on the sunny side of the street. If you are stuck for a new year’s resolution, you might consider doing the same.
What led me to this point was hearing of the death some time ago of a man known to be an inveterate pessimist. He always looked on the dark side and lived alone because he took a dim view of women and matrimony, seeing the wedded state as a female conspiracy to take men’s money and land away.
He had led a pretty miserable life due to his pessimism – he didn’t even seem to take a grim satisfaction in the awfulness of everything, as some do.
Even if his deeply pessimistic view was right, wouldn’t he have been better off being optimistic and at least somewhat happy?
This line of thought led me to the resolution to experiment with seeing the bright side for the next year and to observe what happens.
I am not quite sure why it took me so long to arrive at this. After all, I know already that stressful thoughts, more likely to be generated by pessimism, have adverse effects on health.
That’s because they kick off stress reactions including, among other things, higher blood pressure. Very optimistic older people live longer than their very pessimistic peers largely, it would seem, because the risk of heart disease is significantly lower.
While some people are born optimistic others can choose to behave in an optimistic way and thereby cultivate this quality.
This might not only be a matter of lower blood pressure. Optimistic people, for instance, are more likely to be active and physical fitness is a big contributor to health. That’s why some GPs send patients off to the gym.
Quite outside the area of health, long-standing research in the field of positive psychology shows that optimists are better able to stick with tough jobs such as, in the research by Dr Martin Seligman, selling insurance over the phone. This isn't something I want to do but it emphasises that the practice of optimism has benefits in many areas of life.
How to actually do this, though? I could decide to have optimistic thoughts instead of pessimistic ones but thoughts are slippery and it’s harder than it might look to replace one type of thinking with another. What I can do, though, is to be more alert at spotting automatic pessimism and questioning it when it arises.
My main plan is to adopt a “fake it till you make it” approach.
Instead of looking for what can go wrong and then focusing on that, I will experiment with asking myself: what would I do if I was optimistic?
Common sense
Psychologist Suzanne Segerstrom, author of The Glass Half Full, suggests that while some people are born optimistic others can choose to behave in an optimistic way and thereby cultivate this quality.
Of course optimism without common sense can lead you down the wrong path. I could be optimistic about walking down a dark alley in a bad area late at night and end up in accident and emergency feeling sorry for myself. I’m not going to do that.
And I would never say that people can dig themselves out of their circumstances with positive thinking alone; sometimes the odds are stacked against you and it can take a lot more than the efforts of one person or one family to change that.
That said, though, a candle lit in the darkness still gives light.
And even the most difficult life has its moments of happiness and pleasure. If optimism increases the number of those moments then that is worthwhile.
So I’ll set off into 2020 in the shadow of Brexit, Trump, fire, storm and ice (in other words climate change) with as much optimism as I can.
I might get to live longer in a happier state and I might get further ahead with my various projects but it’s not just that. The other reason for practising optimism is because, well, why not?
Pádraig O’Morain (@PadraigOMorain) is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Daily Calm. His daily mindfulness reminder is free by email (pomorain@yahoo.com).