It doesn’t require much imagination to realize we will keep improving.The Spectrum of Optimism and Pessimism by Morgan HouselĪt one end you have the pure optimist. And humans as a group have kept improving throughout all these challenges. Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen many crises, from wars to financial collapse, to a global pandemic. But it wasn’t until 2020 that I went all-in with optimism. And I must be honest, I slowly started changing my perspective over the past six years. It’s a completely different way of living. You realize that the world keeps improving, and you don’t want to be left behind. You have faith in the future, so you invest in your education, maintain your health, and steadily invest in assets. Otherwise, why put your money into real assets? When you adopt an optimistic perspective on the world, you behave differently. Everything has just exceeded anybody’s dreams.” Optimists behave differentlyĮvery long-term investor is an optimist. “In 231 years, nobody in his wildest dream would have thought that in the next three life times, the US will have 280 million people, aeroplanes will fly at 40,000 feet and have great hospitals systems. Buffett spent the first part of the meeting talking about all the good things that happened: And ever since the 1990s, when he started receiving global fame, he’s repeated one thing publicly: “Never bet against America.”Īt the 2020 annual shareholders meeting of his firm Berkshire Hathaway, at the peak of the global Covid pandemic, he reiterated the same message. While many other global investors scream fire and warn the world about major crashes and secular bear markets, Buffett has been optimistic for his (almost) 80-year investing career. He’s a good stock picker, but more than anything else, he’s optimistic and patient-a combination of personality traits not a lot of people possess. One of the main reasons Warren Buffett is successful is not because he’s the best stock picker in the world. As investors say, you have to be bullish on the future. You can get wealthy.īut you have to believe that the world is going in the right direction. When you see examples of people who made something out of themselves from nothing, you have proof. Optimism will make your life betterĪnd that reason is the promise of a better future. You need a really good reason to change your whole outlook on life. When bad things seem to happen to you and the people in your life, it’s hard to imagine things can be good.
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When life is hard, you tend to fall into a negative downward cycle. As a child of first-generation immigrants, growing up without much money, I’m not surprised I leaned more towards pessimism. And it probably has to do with your background. While we don’t know exactly how many people are born optimists vs born pessimists, I assume the latter group is in the majority. And that tiny bit of improvement is the case for optimism. The world is no way near perfect, but it’s a little bit better than in the past. But here comes the kicker: There’s less suffering than a hundred years ago. There’s still a lot of suffering in the world. If you believe the world is bad, you won’t have a hard time finding evidence. If you look at the history of humanity, you’ll see violence, war, injustice, inequality, pain, torture, famine-all negative things. The reason so many people are attracted to Fight Club, and similar dark stories, is because it’s close to reality. He talked about not caring about what other people say or do, making your own plans, not being afraid of destruction, and so forth. The moment I saw it, I could instantly relate to the view that Chuck Palahniuk had about life.
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OPPOSITE OF OPTIMISM MOVIE
My favorite book and movie in my teens was Fight Club, a story about anarchy and fighting the status quo. Those same people might be optimistic when it comes to green energy or the ability to educate others through social media. For example, a lot of people have a very dark view of the future of technology or the climate. Most of us have both optimistic and pessimistic tendencies. I don’t think people are 100% one way or the other. It’s just a matter of time before we self-destruct.
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Someone who thinks evil ultimately wins and that the world is doomed. What does it even mean to be an optimist or pessimist? In the world of philosophy, an optimist is a person who believes that good ultimately prevails over evil and that our world is headed in the right direction.Ī pessimist is exactly the opposite. I had to force myself to adopt optimism as my main view on life, but I can always feel the pull of pessimism. You probably wouldn’t guess this since I write about personal growth and investing, but I’m mostly a pessimist by nature.