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Brian Johnson argues optimism is a trainable skill, not a fixed trait. He draws on Martin Seligman's research and compares pessimists to couch potatoes and optimists to triathletes, then calls you to start practicing at the Optimism Gym.
Brian Johnson argues optimism is a trainable skill, not a fixed trait. He draws on Martin Seligman's research and compares pessimists to couch potatoes and optimists to triathletes, then calls you to start practicing at the Optimism Gym.
Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. This one's called Optimism. Jim, let's say we're currently pretty pissy and pessimistic. Can we learn to be optimistic? Absolutely. Martin Seligman wrote an entire book called Learned Optimism where he outlines his suggested ways to get our optimism on. See the three Ps of optimism later in this book. And all the ideas in this section are essentially about helping you build your optimism muscles. Here's one way to think about a pessimist is the emotional equivalent of a couch potato whose idea of exercise is picking up the remote and taking a quick bathroom break during commercials. Totally flabby and out of shape and unhealthy. If that pessimist wants to become a rock star triathlete esque optimist, he's gonna need to train hard. And not once in a while when he feels like it, but consistently. It's pretty much the exact same thing with our emotional well being. We've got to hit the Optimism Gym. Good news is, membership's free. We just need to show up and do the work. So let's do the work. We've got some more ideas on how to do it and some exercises you can do in the Optimism Gym coming up. For now, hope you dug it. Have an awesome day. See ya.
