![]() ![]() We wear rose-tinted glasses whether we are eight or eighty. Maybe that’s why most of us wear rose-colored glasses: At the end of the day, how we feel when we get dumped or win an award depends mostly on how we interpret the event. Research shows that whatever the outcome, whether we succeed or we fail, people with high expectations tend to feel better. If we are never disappointed when things don’t work out and are pleasantly surprised when things go well, we will be happy. If we don’t expect greatness or find love or maintain health or achieve success, we will never be disappointed. Some people believe the secret to happiness is low expectations. ![]() Today was a bad day? No worries, tomorrow will be better.Ĭhallenging the assertion that the key to life is low expectations: We expect to do more work this week than last. These (likely) unrealistic predictions of an amazing future extend to everything. Unemployment, divorce, debt, Alzheimer’s, and any number of other regrettably common misfortunes are rarely factored into our projections. Though each of us may define happiness in a different way, it remains the case that we are inclined to see ourselves moving happily toward professional success, fulfilling relationships, financial security, and stable health. What pops into your head? How do you see your family life? How do you see yourself professionally? This knowledge that old age, sickness, decline of mental power, and oblivion are somewhere around the corner, can be devastating.Ĭlose your eyes for a second. While mental time travel has clear survival advantages, conscious foresight came to humans at an enormous price - the understanding that somewhere in the future, death awaits. It allows us to plan ahead, to save food and resources for times of scarcity, and to endure hard work in anticipation of a future reward. Although most of us take this ability for granted, our capacity to envision a different time and place is critical for our survival. To think positively about our prospects, it helps to be able to imagine ourselves in the future. That is, the ability to move back and forth through time and space in one’s mind. ![]() Optimism starts with what may be the most extraordinary of human talents: mental time travel. Sharot argues the root of optimism starts with mental time travel. It takes rational reasoning hostage, directing our expectations toward a better outcome without sufficient evidence to support such a conclusion. Rather, optimism may be so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our most complex organ, the brain.”įrom modern-day financial analysts to world leaders, newlyweds, the Los Angeles Lakers, and even birds, optimism biases human and nonhuman thought. ![]() “Humans,” she writes, “do not hold a positivity bias on account of having read too many self-help books. In The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, Tali Sharot argues that we have a neurobiological basis for imagining a positive future. ![]()
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