Is optimism – a choice? Yes it is. All of us choose to be either an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism usher’s peace from within, while being the other, leads to a turbulent mind, making negative waves, for action or reaction. Optimism accepts things as they are, submits to everything and believes in everything. Pessimism is to look for excuses for not accepting the things as they are.
Is optimism – a choice? Yes it is. All of us choose to be either an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism usher’s peace from within, while being the other, leads to a turbulent mind, making negative waves, for action or reaction. Optimism accepts things as they are, submits to everything and believes in everything. Pessimism is to look for excuses for not accepting the things as they are.
If optimism is all that good, why do you find amidst corporates or otherwise too, so many pessimists, who roam around with their neck held high in the air, as “Doctors of Dooms”? It is because many believe the decision to always look at life situations as ‘glass half full’ may lead to development of ostrich-like tendency of burying head in the sands of optimism, while reality may not be representative of anything leading to positivism. Therefore, can optimism be classified as living in a state of deception? Is it a self-indulging attitude or even absolutely misleading? It indeed may be so, if there is a complete divorce with reality. Is optimism, therefore, day dreaming? Is it a reality? Does it represent a state of mind that ever remains hopeful against all odds of better times in future? All that glitters may not be gold, but it could very well be. Let’s examine.
Do you, as a manager, have the habit to only review and calculate failures and its possible collateral damage in your pursuit of the corporate goals or even your personal life. Or, do you often recall the big and small achievements that have come your way – it is all about how you think of yourself.
Devoid of drive and effort, is optimism, a workable reality? Does it require any skill or preparation to be an optimist? Our ability to examine, with truthfulness to self, that do all clouds have silver lining, is an essential training, to see, how we can place our attitudes, in a certain box. My work experience has been that no dark or grey clouds stay forever in the firmament of your life. They too pass over. Is optimism an attitude? Is it acquirable? Or is it a gift of nature that only a handful of us are blessed with? I believe, it is all about that orientation that is pumped in us by our environment during our childhood years that ultimately drives us, rules us. iIt could be sentiments of optimism or negativism.
Animal kingdom is more optimistic in nature than mankind. Men save provisions, not just for the next day but for months and years. No animal or bird has or owns a “godown of provisions”. They have ultimate faith in their inherent or instinctual optimism that they will find food for sustenance. Here, it is a God-gifted optimism. Man brings a bundle of hope and suspicions; rationalises to put to death the inherent and gifted optimism, as a sign of being forward-looking. He believes “only” in planning. Man proposes, God disposes.
Does failure make you a pessimist? If it does, then it is bound to lead it to a very different attitude; alternatively, with some, it can spur positive energy. An intelligent manager will constantly review achievements not to create feelings of arrogance but for nurturing self-confidence within his teammates and in his own life.
"Yet when an equal poise of hope and fear does arbitrate, my nature is that I incline to hope, rather than fear; and grandly banish squint suspicion (John Milton). The attitude of an optimist manager is to venture towards risk-taking and challenge the ever changing markets. As against someone (pessimist) who will always come up with right or wrong reasons for not doing a certain thing or anything, an optimist will always try to discover ways and means to do … something new and original and cope with any attending risks. Optimistic managers are driven by hope, while pessimistic ones trap themselves within the web of doubt.
For taking calculated risks in conducting business, none of us has to climb and plant a flag of success on the Himalayas – it is the surmounting of small hills and mountain tops that essentially allow us giving a shot at higher and larger goals.
However, optimistic thought is not meant to encourage maintenance of a self-serving belief that all is well. For assigned to the optimist is the appendage of an ever-lasting gift of hope. Our attitude will determine on which side of the fence our belief system lies. Do you see the doughnut or does your mind only concentrate on the hole in the doughnut? Check out to know where you stand. The pessimist’s greatest fear in life is that the optimist might actually be right.
A manager, vested with strong foundation of belief that hard work and action, will necessarily yield positive results, always live a life outside the limits of his mind and cannot be possessed or obsessed with doubts that are securely closeted in the mind and prevent them from taking any new initiative. All of us in life encounter the “parachute managers”. They are filled to the brim with doubts that even if any initiative “takes off” of the ground, it will need to be rescued – and therefore the “parachute attitude”; leading to "let's not do it" response to emerging opportunities.
The optimist manager must remain mindful not to fall as a hostage to a pessimist team or even a pessimist organisation. In any team, it is best to count friends, not the foes. If you do otherwise, the presence of foes will intimidate the initiatives you may want to venture upon. Avoid also the corporate pollution of pessimism, that is mostly encapsulated within the wombs of malicious office gossip that does major rounds within the organisation. These broadcasts mostly include fake news.
Optimism is tolerant to even not the best. Today is an illusion and tomorrow is the new challenge, for any optimist. To have such an approach, it requires of you to divorce yourself from the present moment and transcend into the future, with inspiration to achieve greater good.
As a final argument, let me be clear that optimism does not mean, that bad should look good or the ugly must look beautiful. This will be suicidal. To the peril of all, if “la vie en rose” is to ever become the singular approach to life, essentially implying unfounded favour or an idealistic look at everything through rose-coloured spectacles; it can lead to disastrous decision-making. A balance in temprament, attitude, beliefs, and values is a pre-requisite for determination of the approach whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.
If a pessimist says, could this cold December be the last in my life? An optimist would be like, if winter is here, can spring be far? It’s all about attitude and mental orientation. Both aspects are trainable. Optimism should be used a stimulant, not as an intoxication for misplaced hope.
The writer is a freelance columnist
