People say that I am overly optimistic. I’m not, actually. But given a choice between the negative view of life or the positive view of life, which would you honestly choose?
Now, we are overwhelmed today with negative information. And this is basically because a hundred years ago or so, maybe a little bit more now, a hundred and twenty-five, Joseph Pulitzer and Randolph Hearst were competing.
They were competing for newspaper dominance in New York City. And they realized that the negative news was far, far more attractive to the average literate person than positive news. The story of Mrs.
Smith’s cat was not as intriguing as some awful occurrence, some assault, some murder, or something that is a fire, let’s say. Awful things. That sold newspapers, labeled as yellow journalism from the section that it sat in the newspaper, supposedly.
Hence, we’re dominated today by the story of the profane, the awful. If it bleeds, it leads, I’ve heard expressed. So horror and gore are much more interesting than peace and love.
But why, why has this occurred? Because the average person, of course, doesn’t want violence in their life. They do want love and harmony.
Well, supposedly, when we left the Rift Valley in Ethiopia some hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand years ago, there were only around a hundred thousand of us, Homo sapiens.
And we migrated up into the Levant, modern-day Israel, and then we spread to Europe and Russia, down into China, etc. We populated the earth.
And as we were walking along the Rift Valley, if we heard a whisper in the grass and we did nothing, we were probably devoured, we were eaten. And so very quickly, we bred ourselves biologically into fearful beings.
Now, curiously, we are also trusting beings because we had to trust the fellow beside us, to warn us, to hold our hand, to guide us, to drive away the animals. So we are naturally communal and loving as well. We are not intrinsically selfish.
That’s another learned phenomenon. So we are now fearful and we are kind of strangely egocentric. But these are not natural traits.
We are naturally loving and caring.
Now, why should we opt for the optimistic side? Well, I don’t think we should be overly naïve because, I mean, life is hard and life is fickle. Bad things do happen.
But given any set of circumstance, I think one should analyze the upside. What’s the best that could occur here? Let’s say, for instance, you, I don’t know, get a new job or you buy a stock on the market.
It could go up, but conversely, it could crash and burn. And you’ve analyzed both perspectives. So you’re not going to be shocked if everything falls away.
And conversely, you aren’t going to be overly blindly thrilled if the absolute best thing occurs as well. You know, in North America, if you win the lottery, the average person is broke within five years. Five years.
Having perhaps even less money than they started with. Why? Well, because of poverty thinking.
Poverty thinking means that my grandfather was poor, my father was poor, I’m poor, and my children will be poor. And this really is not about money. It’s about a view of the world.
So if you sit back and say, Why am I here? What’s my mission? And what happens when I leave here?
And then you think that you really do have a mission, whatever that may be, then you will overcome all adversity in your life, or at least you will be on the path.
You won’t be a victim, and increasingly more and more and more of us are victims, aren’t we? But you don’t realize when you’re young, probably under 30, you don’t realize that you are going to leave here, you are going to die.
This consciousness that you possess today won’t exist in 50 or 100 years. There will be perhaps no consciousness in the sense that you won’t have an ego to identify with, or there will be something else. But either way, this reality will change.
So given that this reality will change, why not fill it with as much joy as you possibly can? And gosh, keep away from the things that alter this. The drugs, the alcohol, even legal drugs.
I think if you go and talk to a psychologist, I think we should be very careful. Or a psychiatrist, we should be very careful what is being prescribed. And we should look it up.
Because in the end, I am going to have to deal with me. There is no choice. Because I am caught up in my own private hell in that context, in that sense.
And conversely, my own private joy. So, I deserve to go forward as a positive human being.
And I was thinking the other day, of course, about Dr. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning. But he’s one of many.
Three years or more in Auschwitz. And if you’ve ever been to Auschwitz, you’ll know it is an immense and foreboding place. And you feel very, very small when you’re there.
And most people, of course, were either killed immediately, or they died within six months from overwork and starvation. But he didn’t. He hung on, finished three years or more.
In this, his pregnant wife died. His brother, his sister-in-law, and his mother and father, they all died. And he ended up liberated in January 1945, went back to the office.
And the biggest insult of all was that some of the secretarial staff asked him where he was. Where have you been for the last three years? Were you in the United States working?
Had no idea. Amazing when you think, eh? You know, Abel Speer’s defense, when he was on trial as a war criminal, he saved himself by saying, I’m sorry.
I should have known, but I didn’t. Total nonsense, of course. Total lie.
But still, that’s what he said. He should have known. So I guess it’s true for so many people, in these horrible circumstances that existed in that war.
I should have known, but I didn’t. So when it comes to optimism today, I should have known that I could be in control of my life and made myself happy, but I wasn’t aware.
But increasingly, more and more individuals know that I am responsible. The individual is responsible for the happiness that exists. There are just too many venues now to find your path forward.
You don’t have to live a miserable life. Our organization, Don’t Be A Wage Slave, is predicated on the idea of critical thinking and time. Why?
Because we believe or I believe that we can critically think our way through any problem, and we can give ourselves a solution towards ultimate joy and happiness.
So think to yourself, the next time you’re in a really dire circumstance, whatever it is, there will be another day. And as long as you live, there is an opportunity to be successful to you.
So live your life in optimism, a real optimism, and not in negativity for sure. And you know what they say. You know what they say.
Critical thinking is everything, especially if you want to think through optimism and live a fulfilling life. And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye bye.