There is no optimism.
This is a feature that has always intrigued me.
I'm not sure it's even a feature.
Is this a decision?
Is it a choice?
What is certain is that optimistic people have a power that can positively affect their achievements as well as others.
Optimism helps us to persevere, even when it's difficult or sad, because thanks to optimism we believe that even if now is bad, it will soon be good.
I believe that persistence is a more significant factor than wisdom or talent.
In my opinion, many of the achievements I achieved were because I persisted, when the rest fell by the wayside.
Optimism encourages us to believe in our abilities, to focus on the positive without dwelling on the negative.
But what to do that sometimes the negative requires us to deal with it.
It won't happen to me
The optimism bias has been defined by decision-making researchers as our human tendency to overestimate the likelihood of experiencing positive events and underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events.
That is, overestimating the chances of success and experiencing excessive confidence in our ability or that of others that the situation will work out.
According to studies, about 80% of the population suffers from an optimistic bias.
People really believe that bad things can only happen to others, but not to us;
Only in other countries - but not in the State of Israel.
Several people told me this week that the Jewish mind will not let the country fall apart.
This is what my grandfather also said, a few days before the bank where all his money was deposited went bankrupt.
My grandmother tried to convince him to take some of the money out of the bank because the economic situation in Argentina was very difficult, but he said: this bank has Jewish managers, they won't let that happen.
One day the bank collapsed, and my grandfather lost all his fortune.
The late Lt. Erez Stark was the liaison officer of the Beaufort Ridge and was killed in the helicopter disaster at the age of 21. He left behind a diary and a book of poems. One of the lines in the song he wrote and which was later composed by the "Church of Wisdom" band describes the experience in a chilling way, especially when you know the end of the story :
"Nothing will hurt me, nothing
Not a woman, not a terrorist bullet, nothing
Because that's how I swore to my brother, my sister, my parents."
Maybe this time
Over-optimism causes unrealistic expectations - for example, the hope that someone who has lied to us many times in the past or disappointed us will change and not disappoint us this time.
I once dated a guy and fell head over heels in love with him.
Along the way I discovered that he lied to me on all kinds of occasions, and each time I believed it was the last time.
I really wanted to believe this because I was in love, but this optimism made me stay with him far too long.
I could have avoided some of the heartbreak if I had been a little less optimistic about people's ability to change their skin.
Broken barrel rest
In difficult times, like the time we are going through as a country in the last few weeks, optimism is the support to get up in the morning and carry on almost as usual.
I defined the last period as difficult - so before you shout that I am a leftist or an anarchist, it is important for me to emphasize that this statement has no political context.
No matter what your political or political opinion is, I don't think there is a single person in the State of Israel who wakes up in the morning and smiles happily in light of the number of attacks and the rampage of terrorism in the last two months, in light of the division in the nation and the harsh words being heard from all sides.
No matter which way you look at the situation - it is not happy: huge demonstrations, negative global public opinion, the weakening of the currency, the cost of living, the rise in prices.
I hope that there is no person in Israel that all these things make him happy.
Everything is for the best?
At any given moment, thousands of conversations "about the situation" are taking place.
There are the pessimists who say that the situation is terrible, that this is only the beginning and that it is going to get much worse.
There are the realists who say that this is indeed a difficult period and that we should be vigilant and follow the changes and see the developments, the situation may improve but it may not.
And there are the optimists who say that this is not an easy moment for all of us, but in the end it will be alright and that things have a tendency to work out.
There are the overly optimistic who believe that not only will it be good, but that "it's darkest before the dawn", and that it's going to be much better than it was.
Who has the truth?
There is no telling.
There is a tendency to believe that it pays best to be optimistic, to believe that "every obstacle is good" and that the world has an internal order, where justice and morality triumph over corruption and darkness.
I don't know, I'm not sure.
These days I see people suffering from over-optimism - and in my eyes it is not only harmful but also dangerous.
The optimism bias can cause us to be passive or not see the risks, preventing us from taking measures that can prevent a disaster.
It is true that the optimistic bias also has advantages: people who tend to be optimistic have a lower risk of depression and are less prone to mental stress, as long as the optimism is not completely disconnected from reality.
Will be fine
It is very difficult these days to share thoughts without being labeled: rightist/leftist/traitor/anarchist/parasite/liar/opportunist.
I think the debate has long been no longer between right and left.
More than that, I no longer understand who is considered left and who is considered right.
Right now the debate is about equality as a central value.
Not everyone believes that we are all basically equal.
That women and men, LGBT people and straight people, Muslims and Jews - that everyone should have the same opportunities and the same duties. This is the hard core of the rift - the thought that there is a faith that is worth more, that there is a smarter gender, that there are those with a sexual orientation who deserve to be parents more than those with a different orientation.
Believe in Allah, but tie the camel
It is natural to want to believe that things will always turn out for the best, but over-optimism causes us to ignore facts or give them an illogical explanation, which leads us to choices that are not in our favor.
Over-optimism can have a negative effect not only on our personal lives, but also on our lives as a group, as a country.
The basic human longing is to believe that my leadership wants my best, thinks about me, cares for me.
There is also a perception of elected officials as wise and knowledgeable, therefore a belief that if they want to enact a certain law - it will be fair and just.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Elected officials whose personal interests differ from the public interests may enact laws that benefit themselves and their supporters at the expense of equality, at the expense of other groups, at the expense of the welfare of the state, and at the expense of economic and security stability.
When citizens are too optimistic about their leaders, they may fail to recognize the red flags that indicate corruption and abuse of power and find irrational explanations for them.
Not only that - to attack anyone who undermines the story they want to tell.
People who are overly optimistic may get angry with the realists when they are presented with the facts.
I experienced this about two years ago.
One of my daughter's teachers treated her inappropriately and spoke to her in a degrading manner.
When I told about it to other parents in the class, there were some who were really angry with me for "making an issue of it".
There are over-optimistic people who don't want reality to mar the positive world image they create for themselves, or their appreciation of a character they like, so they will get angry at anyone who wants to tell them a different story.
Over-optimism may also make it difficult for citizens to hold the leaders accountable, because they believe that everything is going well, and that their government works in their favor in any situation and should not be criticized.
They will not feel the need to stand guard and oblige their leaders to explain the actions, they can underestimate the need for transparency.
The connection made between optimism and the need not to criticize the activities of elected officials is very problematic.
An ancient Sufi proverb says: "Surely in Allah, but first tie the camel."
Over-optimists can say: wait a minute, it will be fine, don't criticize them.
The problem is that excessive optimism can make us wake up when it's already too late.
If we go to bed without tying the camel, believing that it will be fine, when we wake up and it has already been stolen, we will not be able to do anything.
When I tried to remove the teacher who hurt my daughter, there were parents who told me that they understood my heart, but the teacher was actually very nice to their particular child.
And this is another one of the sick evils of over-optimism: to narrow our field of vision to what is related to us only.
To doubt is not the opposite of optimism;
Thinking independently and critically and agreeing to hear new information that may change what we knew and consider points of view - this is necessary to survive, no less than the belief that it will be good.
Denial instead of anxiety
We don't like change, and we have denial mechanisms to survive and not live in constant anxiety.
Researcher Dr. Tali Sharot defined it as a selective calibration of our expectations with only positive events and ignoring negative events. I call it in more blunt terms: the ability to lie to ourselves and develop a false confidence that everything will always be fine. People around me say in recent days: I don't want hearing the news, not wanting to know what's going on, in order to remain optimistic. But lack of vigilance is not optimism - it's turning a blind eye, and we pay a heavy price for it. The over-optimism that says something won't hurt us prevents us from taking action, messaging the worry. Optimism bias causes For us to feel less responsible for what happens, which is good on the one hand because then we feel less guilty - but on the other hand we also act less to change. New Age gurus teach not to dwell on the negative, but the truth is that it is difficult to move forward by denying mistakes and failures.
Mom, it can't be
When my daughters were little, I used to tell them bedtime stories that I made up on the fly.
These stories moved them more than the usual books.
Sheila, my eldest, used to get really angry when the stories ended with happiness and wealth and everything fell into place peacefully.
"Mom, it can't be, your stories aren't real, there should also be bad people in the stories who can't beat them. Because it's not like that in life, not everything works out the way you want it to."
What Sheila actually asked me to do is not to become a mentor mother who hides the reality, so that I don't confuse my desire to tell her only good things and the real possibility that not everyone will live happily ever after.
She was only 5 years old when she told me this, and I didn't know whether to be happy for her wisdom or to be saddened by her realistic perception at such a young age.
I still don't know if it's more happy or sad that she gave up naive optimism at such an early stage.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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