Value for Saturday of Week 13 in the season of Sowing

Being Optimistic

Optimism is an attitude that accompanies hope. When we practice and cultivate being optimistic, we poise ourselves to act on our dreams.

  • . . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. [Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first inaugural address]
  • Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; Nothing can be done without hope. [Helen Keller]
  • People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?  [attributed to Thich Nhat Hanh]
  • Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.  [This is not a quotation but a distillation of ideas in William James’ book The Principles of Psychology.]
  • A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. [variously attributed]
  • I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and persevere with a positive attitude. [attributed to Michael Jordan]
  • One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. [attributed to Lucille Ball]

Optimism is expecting good things to occur in your life.” “. . . optimism is defined as a cognitive variable reflecting one’s favourable view about their future . . . Optimists generally have more positive than negative expectations and tend to report less distress in their daily lives, even in the face of challenges . . . What is expected to happen in the future can affect how people experience situations in their daily lives, their health, and how they deal with emotions and stress.

“. . . an optimistic approach protects and promotes mental health.” “. . . optimism and hope are important adaptive phenomena that foster wellbeing, quality of life, and psychological adjustment in the general population and in specific groups, such as people living with mental health conditions. Optimistic and hopeful individuals adapt better to adversity, have lower chances of developing mental disorders, and exhibit behaviours that are healthier and related to greater satisfaction with life.

Optimism is generally accepted by psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals as a preferred way of being. ‘Hope and optimism about the future’ was identified as one of five processes for recovery in mental illness in a systematic review and narrative synthesis of 97 papers in psychiatry.” “. . . positive expectations (that characterize optimism) are associated with higher levels of subjective well-being, better physical health, and a higher quality and quantity of social relationships.” 

People who are more optimistic have better pain management, improved immune and cardiovascular function, and greater physical functioning. Optimism helps buffer the negative effects of physical illness and is associated with better health outcomes in general. Optimists tend to look for meaning in adversity, which can make them more resilient.” One meta-analytic review grouped “studies into those that focused solely on mortality, survival, cardiovascular outcomes, physiological markers (including immune function), immune function only, cancer outcomes, outcomes related to pregnancy, physical symptoms, or pain. In each case, optimism was a significant predictor of health outcomes or markers . . .” “Higher optimism and lower pessimism were most consistently associated with lower rates of substance use and lower cardiometabolic risk.

The benefits of optimism depend on how we approach the attitude and act in response to it. “. . . optimistic beliefs lead to goal attainment when they support agency by contributing to the sense that we are competent and efficacious agents and that our goals are both desirable and attainable.

The benefits of optimism are partially attributable to the manner in which optimists and pessimists cope with adversity. Optimists tend to cope with adversity actively, attempting to solve problems when they can, accepting problems that they cannot resolve, and focusing on the positive aspects of their experiences.” “Higher levels of optimism have been related prospectively to better subjective well-being in times of adversity or difficulty (i.e., controlling for previous well-being). Consistent with such findings, optimism has been linked to higher levels of engagement coping and lower levels of avoidance, or disengagement, coping.” “A significant positive relation emerges between optimism and coping strategies focused on social support and emphasis on positive aspects of stressful situations.

Optimists tend to live on average 11 to 15 percent longer than pessimists . . .” “Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity . . .”

On the whole, optimism is better than pessimism. Still, we are best advised not to overdo it. “. . . tempering a sunny disposition with a small dose of realism, or even pessimism, might be the best way to build resilience and achieve one’s goals.

There is evidence that optimism is associated with taking proactive steps to protect one’s health, whereas pessimism is associated with health-damaging behaviors. Consistent with such findings, optimism is also related to indicators of better physical health.” “Optimism may significantly influence mental and physical well-being by the promotion of a healthy lifestyle as well as by adaptive behaviours and cognitive responses, associated with greater flexibility, problem-solving capacity and a more efficient elaboration of negative information.

While optimists tend to focus on the good outcomes, pessimists focus on the bad outcomes of risk.” A study of college freshmen revealed that “students holding higher expectations of success at their freshman year may enjoy better actual academic achievements.

Optimism appears to lead to civic engagement. “In this era of unprecedented environmental change, optimism could help unite people to act.” “. . . social entrepreneurs’ optimism and hope are positively related to the social performance of their social ventures.

Optimism is a positive attitude about what may happen in the future. Its benefits are clearest when it is expressed as an attitude: “. . . when measured as a trait (e.g., dispositional optimism), optimism seems to largely act as a protective resource—encouraging people to participate in positive behaviors, engage in more productive problem solving, or simply feel happier . . .” Because optimism looks to the future, it is not an action, per se, but optimists are more likely to be active and proactive than pessimists.

Optimism is distinguished from hope in a few ways. Hope is focused on something more specific than optimism, which is a more general attitude. In this sense, optimism is broader, while hope is deeper. (There, in a sense, is a spatial dimension of two values that express a relation to time.)

Real

True Narratives

Biographies on Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

Histories on the New Deal, during the era called the Age of Roosevelt:

Fireside chats:

Technical and Analytical Readings

On optimism:

On the discipline and practice of positive psychology:

Photographs

Documentary and Educational Films

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels and stories:

Poetry

He had his dream, and all through life,
Worked up to it through toil and strife.
Afloat fore’er before his eyes,
It colored for him all his skies:

The storm–cloud dark
Above his bark,
The calm and listless vault of blue
Took on its hopeful hue,
It tinctured every passing beam—
He had his dream.
He labored hard and failed at last,
His sails too weak to bear the blast,
The raging tempests tore away
And sent his beating bark astray.

But what cared he
For wind or sea!
He said, “The tempest will be short,
My bark will come to port.”
He saw through every cloud a gleam—
He had his dream.

[Paul Lawrence Dunbar, “He Had His Dream”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97, “Rheinish” (1850) (approx. 32-36’), “was his final work in the genre which had occupied so much of his energy over the previous ten years of his career. Written around the time of his arrival as the new conductor in Düsseldorf, it is a vibrant testimony to what was to be the last truly happy time in his life.” “The nickname 'Rhenish'—having to do with the Rhine and its surroundings—quickly attached itself to the work. Although this moniker did not derive from the composer himself, Schumann wryly noted that the symphony 'perhaps reflects something of Rhenish life here and there.'” “The Rhenish Symphony, which Schumann composed between November 2 and December 9, 1850, reflects his optimism in the face of new challenges and a fresh start among a people more outgoing than any he had known and whose ebullience delighted him. Top recorded performances are conducted by Szell in 1960, Kubelik in 1964, Sawallisch in 1973, Bernstein in 1984, Dohnányi in 1988, Skrowaczewski in 2006, Zinman in 2014, Ticciati in 2014, Nézet-Séguin in 2014, and Gardiner in 2020.

Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44 (1880) (approx. 36-49’) is “a brilliant, at times fiendishly difficult, and optimistic work . . .” Top recorded performances are by Graffman (Ormandy) in 1965, Zhukov (Rozhdestvensky) in 1969, Donohoe (Barshai) in 1986, Leonskaja (Masur) in 1997, Hough (Vänskä) in 2009, Trpčeski (Vasily Petrenko) in 2012;,  and Gerstein (Byckkov) in 2019.

Many of Franz Josef Haydn’s symphonies and other works reflect an unwavering optimism, especially during the early stages of his writing. Each of these is in a major key.

In his early piano concerti, Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 8, Mozart likely drew from Haydn’s example, which he added to his natural, youthful enthusiasm.

Adolphus Hailstork’s contemporary American music expresses the idyllic spirit of American optimism.

Other works of sunny optimism:

Albums:

From the dark side (pessimism):

From the dark side (brooding):

Music: songs and other short pieces

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

On the shadow side, Peter Greenaway has created remarkably cynical views of the human condition:

latest from

The Work on the Meditations