Should We Be More Optimistic?

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]One of my favorite experiences as a reader is when multiple books get you to think about the same topic over a long period of time. And I have been sort of on the back burner thinking about optimism for a while. I at times feel like the people around me and everyone online doesn't have enough optimism and sometimes fear that without enough optimism, we aren't going to see great results because we'll no longer believe that we can see those great results. And I know in a time period where a lot of people are struggling and a lot of things are a little bit bleak, it can be hard to recognize the importance of optimism. I more than anything just want to open up a discussion and refer to a couple books I've read that have gotten me to think about the topic. This video is going to be separated into two parts and I will timestamp it down below in case you're only interested in one side of my thoughts about optimism. The first part's going to be on a societal level, which will of course by necessity go on to the edges of economics and politics.

[00:01:19]While some people feel uncomfortable talking about ideas that really connect to the real world on a book video on the internet, a lot of people are against that. I am not. So, I am okay bringing up a couple books that will border on those topics. And then the second half of this video, if you're more interested in your own individual experience with optimism and your own life, is going to focus on the personal and we'll be talking about a book with that half, too. So, let's go into the first section here and talk about sort of societal optimism and what books have gotten me thinking about that lately. The first book is one that I have not actually finished yet. I am reading it right now.

[00:02:02]I am probably twothirds of the way through, but it already sparked this topic. So, I want to talk about what I have read and that is Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmer. Robin Wall Kimmer is a professor, a botonist and a member of the Podawatami nation. So she has experience in a academic setting, especially with the environment and with plants, but also within her own cultural setting, which is a pottomy setting or a Native American setting. So she kind of mixes those two together to sort of give her world view on our interaction with the earth and with the world and why it can also be positive and why at times it can be a problem to view it as only a negative thing. I think this is fascinating. In the beginning or towards the beginning of the book, she talks about a situation starting a course at the university level with students who already were I believe in their second or third year. I don't have the exact quote up, but I just read it. And she asks them what they understand about the interaction between humans and the environment or humans and the world. and she asks if they can provide negative examples and also rate how negative that relationship is. All of the students basically rate the negative relationship between humans and the environment as being very high and being a huge problem and can come up with a lot of examples which are very real and very important and things to consider. But when she asks the other side of the question, what can are there any positive examples with human and humans in the environment? They even though they're studying this just come up completely blank. they can't think of anything positive and they rate the relation positive relationship between humans and the environment as really low to which she starts sort of in the book and I imagine to her students as well explaining a lot of the reciprocal relationships that humans have had with the environment and how in many cases especially she goes through some cases of certain types of trees and of course sweet grass and different type of plants when humans interact with these species they actually thrive. And when humans leave them alone, some of them actually start dying off because humans can basically, you know, cut the trees, cut the grass so that there's space for the younger versions of those plants to grow. Whereas otherwise, especially with trees, they might never have gotten the sunlight. They might never have actually uh had the chance to grow because of a lack of human interaction. And this is not the case with all plants. And of course in our sort of industrial world where we have a bunch of farms that are factory farms with animals and then just big fields of one crop only this does not necessarily apply and that can definitely be I haven't finished it yet but that could definitely be a criticism of this book where a lot of people say well yes in the past it worked but now it can't. I would say that there are a couple things in here that make you second uh guess that a little bit at least on the individual level. She kind of talks about the difference between the podawatami language and English and how we talk about the natural world around us. In English, we don't give the same respect through our grammar and through our words to other living beings, be them plants or animals. And she talks about how the Podawadami language is dying first of all, but she's learning it because she wants to sort of be someone who remembers it so that it continues. And she talks about how in the grammar of the language that they used, instead of doing like a difference between like male and female words, which a lot of languages do, or other distinctions, they have basically grammar that's different between things that are living and things that are humanmade or not living. meaning they use the same sort of conjugations and respect for a tree as they would for a human or uh as they would for an animal or any of those things. And she talks about how this changes sort of the psychology of how people think to where they respect the things more in their life, the land in their life, the food that they eat, and how when they sort of have this relationship with nature, they don't have a lot of waste. They used what they take. all things that we might expect from someone who is both a botonist, a professor, and a member of a Native American tribe. But it's still something that I think is useful to recognize that although we always talk about sort of the destructiveness that humans bring and a lot of people really focus on that, it doesn't have to be that way and we don't have to individually think that way. But I mean, it could totally be criticized for yes at one point, but now there's too many of us and what are we going to do with that situation? Which kind of brings me to the second book on this topic that I just want to bring up. There are criticisms and faults and people who hate this next book as well. Actually, I don't know if there's that many people who hate uh the Sweet Grass book, but uh and that is a little bit more uh this one's a little bit more of a political science opinion book by some journalists. So it could be said that they are not the experts in everything they talk about. Rather, it's just a broad thesis of how they kind of view how we should go about uh I don't know creating a better society for the future. And I read this a while ago. It's called abundance. I think the first author is Ezra Klein.

[00:07:48]There's another one. They kind of wrote it together. So I'll put it up here because I don't remember right now. They kind of make the claim that to some extent within their book, it's been a while since I've read it, but they kind of make the claim that we've been too scared in a way or too pessimistic in a way to really follow through on largecale societal projects that make a difference in the problems we're currently seeing.

[00:08:14]They have ideas in this book like changing housing policy to be able to build more houses. They have ideas like more infrastructure for clean energy. I am looking at notes because I don't remember everything. And talking about how giant government projects that build things that are better for the future have been a thing of the past, but have been something that we've really been struggling with lately. talking about investing in science and innovation and trusting in the ability people have to come up with ways to solve our problems that might actually seem really unlikely and huge in scope but that we've sort of done it before. So they they kind of talk about how regulation at times can be a problem when they talk about things like the the example they given here is the highspeed rail in California. how there's a lot of money put into it. But we keep stopping the project uh every single moment because of different concerns and about how these largecale projects that we can trust in to some extent to create solutions for the future could actually be something that we take more seriously and that we look at a little bit more optimistically. Of course, having a a book that is sort of uh not only optimistic for the future, but also talking about regulation is going to make it have a lot of people who disagree. And I tend to I tended to like the main thesis. I do agree with the idea that they are sort of journalists and it's very broad strokes.

[00:09:48]If you get into the minute details, there's complications that of course have to be handled. And when it comes to the critiques I've seen with like them talking about less regulation where in some things we probably want more, I think their specificam examples were ones that made sense. I don't see them advocating for not regulating companies like Amazon as far as selling goods or whatnot, which I tend to think is a good thing. more so their belief that we should be able to not only innovate and invest in science but also execute projects that can be better for the future. And I think that was generally good. In fact, I felt like a lot of the comments or a lot of the reviews that were negative about this book. Some of them were reasonable, talking about how it was too broadstrokes and we need to get more into the specifics, which I agreed with. But other other comments or other reviews kind of were saying, well, the authors didn't spend enough time talking about how no matter what we do for the future, we already lost the battle of climate change, and they need to recognize that and tell people the truth. And I think that in my own personal opinion, when it comes to sort of the future of society and what we leave for the next generation, if we only ever have an optimistic view that we've already lost, I think that's kind of sad. And you kind of see these views and how we talk definitely impacting uh the young younger generations, younger gen Z, older Gen Alpha that are really starting to pick this up. And they have very little hope for the future. And I think that's sad. So although these books were definitely not perfect, it got me thinking about how it might be useful on a societal level to have a little bit of optimism. Although of course there could be the critique that maybe being optimistic is somewhat naive. I still think there's a place for it. Let me know what you think about it on the societal level down in the comments because that would be interesting. And let me know if you have read or if you're planning to pick up either of those books. So now we're going to get into the personal level of optimism. I tend to be a believer that being optimistic about your personal life as much as possible regard of course terrible things have set people back and I believe in also recognizing those things but having a general optimistic look outlook for what you can do for the rest of your life I see as a good thing. The book that I read that uh I found interesting on the personal level for optimism is learned optimism from Martin Seligman who has a lot of good research. He is someone who has done research on learned helplessness and also on the positive impact of optimism in the individual life. I will say if you pick up this book, I think a lot of his analysis of optimism and of the research that has been done is amazing. He does sort of get into his own personal opinions towards the end.

[00:12:47]And I don't agree all with all of his personal opinions about society and how people are. It's kind of like the first half is science and the second half is soapbox. So I'm just going to let you know that now because I don't want you to pick up the book and think that I agree with the entire thing. Actually, I think it's very healthy to read a book and agree with part of it and not agree with another part of it. And people should do that more often. Anyway, the three pillars of optimism being positive in people's life that he talks about after kind of going over the actual science part of the book that I figured I would outline because I think they're they could be useful for some people. Uh the first one is permanence and it's how you view things that happen to you. It's how you view yourself. It's how you view your life. And he makes the argument based on the data that people who tend to view things as permanent tend to be a little bit less resilient and a little bit less happy in the long term. And what permanence means is basically viewing something as unchanging and as permanent forever. So, for example, if you want to become a very good public speaker, I feel like I'm decent at talking to the camera now, but I was not always good at that. And I don't know if this counts as public speaking, but it's still it's a skill. So, say I was making my first YouTube video, and my first YouTube video I've ever made is atrocious. I'll tell you that. I could have looked at the video and been like, I am terrible on camera and I am a terrible public speaker. And I could have viewed that as sort of like a permanent thing for the rest of my life and just something that I thought was unchanging. Whereas someone who doesn't sort of have that permanence mindset, someone who is more optimistic and generally a little bit more resilient and happy would say something like, "Wow, that was not a great video. I did not speak well in that moment. I'll do better next time." And of course, this can be a little bit controversial when we get into are you just sad or are you depressed? Like there's definitely problematic things with the way that this is framed, but I do think on the large scale viewing things as especially negative things as temporary can definitely be good for you in general.

[00:15:07]He also kind of talks about how positive things being permanent also can be a problem. So of course like we could talk about the famous smart kid problem where a kid has been told they are smart for their entire lives and then they come across something that challenges them.

[00:15:25]It challenges their permanent identity of being smart and then they have issues that way as well. So whether it be bad or good, having something too permanent in your mind can make you less resilient and less happy in the long term.

[00:15:41]according to this author and this part of the book I tend to think makes sense.

[00:15:45]The second thing he says after analyzing all of the research on how people think that will affect your resilience and your happiness is what he calls pervasiveness.

[00:15:57]And this is how much does one thing that happens to you affect the rest of your life. So, one example, I believe he might have given this example in the book, but it's been a while since I've read it, but it works anyway, is say you lose your job. Say you get fired. That is obviously something that is bad, that is negative. It's optimism is, you know, not about just like forcing a smile all the time. That's not a good thing. But someone who you has too much pervasiveness will lose their job and then they won't enjoy anything else in their life. Their relationships will suffer. They won't go on the uh walk they usually go on at night. They won't a lot of things will sort of kind of fall downhill from there. And of course, there is a financial component to that example that should not be overlooked.

[00:16:53]There's a lot of nuance to a lot of these conversations, but someone who sees something as less persuasive will say, "I lost my job. That sucks."

[00:17:03]They'll spend a few hours every day trying to find a new one that is good for them, but they'll still be kind to their spouse. They'll still uh go on their afternoon walk. A lot of the other things in their life will be the same and still be positive. They'll still read the book they were planning to read before bed. something falling apart doesn't set like all of the dominoes going down. And I think that uh at broadstrokes, because this is broadstrokes, that is also another good thing to just reflect on and think about because someone who is able to sort of segment those little things and feel joy and something else that's happening even when something bad is is happening can experience to some extent more happiness. Of course, there are extremes where I wouldn't expect it to work as well, but that is it's the broad trend, not any individual circumstance. And the third thing he talks about after doing sort of this population study in his book is the idea of personalization. And this one's the really interesting one.

[00:18:05]On the internet, we tend to talk about people being victims, but the personalization part that he talks about almost acts like being a victim is a good thing. But I think there's a really important distinction. So the idea of this third way of thinking that is going to be better if you think a certain way.

[00:18:24]He says if you basically externalize your problems, you're actually oftentimes better off than if you internalize them too much.

[00:18:35]Which is crazy because of course we tend to think of externalizing problems as a bad thing and accountability and internalizing them as a good thing culturally. Let me let me kind of say how he thinks of it. So I'm going to take I don't know something that could happen to me uh rather than take another example from someone that is not me. So say I have a conversation with a man and for whatever reason I have the feeling that I have a really good argument. I'm saying a lot of really interesting things but he's not listening to me.

[00:19:12]He's looking down at me. he's not taking anything I say uh in at all. I could say I am a terrible communicator and I can internalize that and really feel that and that's going to be bad for me. Or in that moment I can say uh he is dismissing me because I have a certain personality and I am a woman or something which doesn't happen to me a lot but this is the distinction in that situation in that moment if that's actually happening it's better to sort of according to this to the book it's better to externalize it and recognize what's happening in the moment rather than internalize everything negative that ever happens especially when it might not be your fault. But the difference between that and being a victim in my brain is that was one interaction and in that one interaction with that specific man that might have actually happened. Now if I were to say because I had this bad interaction with this man where he wasn't hearing me out, he wasn't listening to anything I have to say and he was disregarding me perhaps because I'm a woman that every other man is going to do that too. That would be going on pervasiveness. that would be taking something from one situation and applying it everywhere when it really was just that one situation and maybe the next person won't do that to me. So that's kind of where I feel like there's a difference between what he's saying here and our modern-day application of sort of the victim mentality. And this book was written in 1990. So there is something to that too. If something happens to you that legitimately isn't an internal fault from you, but something external happened, it's okay to recognize that as long as you don't ex blame that same external thing for every single thing you ever do because then you're taking that data and applying it where it doesn't apply. I don't know if that makes sense, but his just to wrap up his ideas are that don't be permanent in how you think about yourself or about things. Recognize things can change and that's a good thing. Um, don't apply if something happens to you that's bad, don't make it pervasive and change your whole life. Try to segment a little bit because people who do that are generally happier and generally have better outcomes u for what they can control.

[00:21:33]There's things out of our control and that's always true. And then that don't blame yourself too often. blaming yourself too often can actually be really bad um for your happiness, for your perseverance, and it makes you less optimistic. And his claim is being is that being optimistic is a good thing based off ideas with positive psychology that you may or may not agree with. But I tend to agree with part of it. And that part of it I actually think is pretty decent. So I tend to think that in general on both of these ways of thinking, society and the personal level, a little bit more optimism could be a little bit useful. I do tend to find, I don't know, good effects in my own life when I am more optimistic and when I do view things as being able to change and being able to get better. Let me know what you think about society in general right now and on your personal level. Do you think we could use more optimism? Do you think that we have too much pessimism and realism and that we need to balance it out a little bit more? Or do you think that being optimistic about most things is somewhat naive, especially when a lot of bad things are happening? Because I see that as well. I just can't live that way.

[00:22:48]Thanks for watching and I'll see you later.