On Optimism


Imagine this essay as an argument for how to live your life in the best way possible. Similar to a doctrine like "Utilitarianism" by John Stuart Mill or The Bible.It is a collection of thoughts and influences put together into one guiding constitution that suggests a way to live better than all others.

I start by saying that the idea of being optimistic is not something many people utilize in their lives. All too often people focus on past experiences, dwelling on negatives in a situation and worrying about things they have no control over. What makes this particularly interesting is that many recognize what it is that is troubling them and may even acknowledge the fact that a possible solution would be to "find the silver lining" or "not cry over spilled milk."

This is an attempt to put forth an argument for how one can incorporate any number of sources to develop their individualized version of Optimism.

Something important to recognize before even beginning is that what I am writing is the way I have used influences in my life to develop my version of Optimism. For each person reading it they will draw on their own past, experiences and influences to develop their own version of Optimism, while still falling under its umbrella.
In my recent life I have found myself wanting to look at all of the people around me and boil them down to what really makes them operate. To look at a person, observe how they act and be able to understand what their guiding principles are. Through doing this I have been rewarded with the realization that all of the people I know are each as dynamic an individual as I am myself, no less unique, but also very predictable when you recognize what it is that motivates the individual.

Through looking at differing types of people I have begun to understand that each person has a set of guidelines that they stick to throughout their life as a type of constitution outlining how they should act in each different circumstance. Of course many haven’t articulated it, and may not even be aware of its presence but each individual is actually very predictable if you can truly understand what it is that makes them operate.
With that said I move on to how I operate. I benefit here from having one of the greatest writers of all time pen a great line before me that applies itself perfectly. "This above all to thine one self be true." Everything starts with having a firm sense of self and the confidence to act like yourself under any circumstance. It is not to say that your sense of self is a stagnant thing that you must always be trying to be, it will be a continually evolving thing that is slightly abstract in nature but very genuine in feeling.

Staying truthful to yourself allows the person to have supreme confidence in all of the decisions that they make. Many other ways of operating obsess far too much over others views about them, and whether those people like to admit it or not, to a certain extent their actions are being dictated by the people surrounding them. Staying truthful to yourself is a way of giving you the power to dictate your actions.

Rather than be concerned with petty differences, accept the fact that people will have a problem with you sometimes. For Someone who is very concerned with things that you aren’t such as image or appearance it will be hard for them to accept that you do not give it more thought than you do. Some people will not like you. This is not a bad thing. Instead look on it as a sense of freedom, where you have been given the unbelievable ability to know exactly what to do in any possible scenario. Act only in accordance with what you believe to be truest to yourself and you can never go wrong. It is only when external things come in to play and begin changing the way that you operate that you truthfully get into trouble.

This gift of freedom in its truest form gives you the ability to be infinitely capable of producing whatever you can imagine. You are not bound down by the constraints of conservative views or societal norms. It is the ace up your sleeve that works every single time and isn’t even considered cheating.

Followed by this sense of self there is also an ability to let things go. Drawing from many different philosophical arguments I point notice to a few in particular that illustrate how this is an advantage. The first is the idea explored by The Ontological Argument for the existence of God originally written by St. Anselm. It states that if you attempt to imagine an infinite being with all perfections, in the process you are forced to accept that existence is a perfection. Is having a million dollars better than imagining 1 million dollars? Of course it is, therefore by the very nature of existence being a perfection and of you attempting to think of an infinite being with all perfections you have proved that it must exist. Lets not waste time debating The Ontological Argument, that is not our purpose, so for the purpose of this paper we will just accept that it is true.

Following this I draw on work done by Albert Camus about the idea of the absurd. Basically the absurd is living in a world that has contradictions. It is looking at world, created by an all powerful God with all perfections, and recognizing that there is still evil in this world. This can mean one of only two things. Either there is evil in the world that God put here and he is not all good, or there is evil in the world that God did not put here and he is not all powerful. Here it seems like there are contradicting theories about your God. One thing states he should be one way, another states he should be something else. This contradiction when extrapolated has the capacity to make the human life meaningless. Now you just become another spec on the map of the universe, completely unoriginal and insignificant in the greater scheme of things. How can you make things meaningful for you?
The answer is actually the opposite of what most people would think. Rather than place significance on the things that are occurring in your life, you are going to take all the meaning out of every possible circumstance. Imagine that, truly developed to its fullest extent. People living so immediately in the present that no change could impact them because they were already living in the moment ahead of the moment that had just passed. No murder, suicide or lost loved one had any importance because it is all about embracing the singular present moment and living it. For many people this is a tremendously unnatural way to think and I admit I struggle with it myself. What is important to recognize is that this idea is an idea that exists in theory but is not practical in everyday life. Living in this state would simply create non-action where you were literally starving yourself to death because you were living in the moment.

That is not what I am arguing for us to revert to. Instead treat it as a process, with that as the goal at the end of the road. Look at the way you live your life and see how much more enjoyable things can become when all of a sudden things aren’t capable of hurting you anymore. Imagine being able to go through some of the most tragic events of all time and feel no guilt or remorse what so ever because you were so caught up in the current moment. It gives you the ability to progress towards infinite happiness.

Keeping that in mind as an end goal it needs to be balanced with the demands of the physical world. You must eat and you must drink, and there are many other things that you must do. There are certain things that you should probably do and there are certain things that you probably shouldn’t and the gray area that is created by this entire process is the interesting field where you play the game of life. Keeping in mind the end goal of having nothing matter, while still being able to motivate yourself with goals.

How this relates to being able to let things slide is very simple. Time and time again there will be situations in which you can make a personal sacrifice to do a group of people a greater good. A split second example when it may take you swallowing some of your dignity to allow a collective group of people to be more comfortable in a situation. You should look at this as in your best interest too because even though it is you making the sacrifice you are advancing the interests of the group collectively to the maximum potential. Here you are doing a sort of cost benefits analysis similar to John Stuart Mill’s argument for Utility.

You will find that you will be able to do little things that really don’t impact you too greatly, but allow you to significantly increase the amount of enjoyment had by the group of people you are with. When problems present themselves it is then your job to recognize that problem so that in the future you can do your best to avoid it even while not making a big deal or "crying over spilt milk" immediately after it has happened. This removes the stress from your life.

The last thing that needs to be established is meaning and faith, which go hand in hand. Words like God and faith often have negative connotations because of the amount of damage that organized religions have done by causing things like conservative social views to be associated with God, when in actual fact God literally is just an all perfect infinite being. But is that the type of thing you want to have faith in? More than likely it is lacking of any real emotional connection that would make someone want to be faithful to it. What is there to be faithful to? What answer can help every problem no matter how absurd while allowing the person the still act truthfully to themselves, and let things go? The Answer is Optimism.

Optimism is a beautiful thing that gives you the ability to pull yourself away from any situation because, couldn’t it always be worse? And therefore don’t you have it pretty good? Have faith in goodness. It is the most genuine of all things. Whenever things appear to be going terribly wrong, whenever you are completely down on yourself, and thinking that things couldn’t be worse, stop for a minute and recognize that actually, yes, things can always be worse. Infinitely worse. They can also be infinitely better. These two thoughts actually work together. Things can always be worse. Realizing this gives you the ability to rationalize your placement, and understand that you don’t have it that bad. Then thinking that things can be better gives you the greatest gift of all. Hope.
At no point do you have to stop having hope. Hope for all things better. This hope is what I call Optimism, and is what you can have fun being faithful to from now until infinity.

Live!