I am often asked whether I am optimistic for the future of humanity. My simple answer is yes.

I am often asked whether I am optimistic for the future of humanity. My simple answer is yes. – Dalai Lama

If all you ever heard was the bad news, it would be easy to be a pessimist.

What does that mean?
I agree with the quote. Yes, there are terrible things going on in the world. Yes, there is civil unrest, war, inhumane treatment of people. However, that’s what we see on the news. How often do you see acts of kindness on the news? How often do you see details of people giving to charity (unless it’s a very large amount)?

Yet, it happens. Like the tree falling in the woods, if a reporter isn’t there doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There are people all over the world right this moment who are helping one another, feeding one another, and loving one another. And they will never be on the news.

So, yes, I am optimistic about the future of humanity. Even with all the sound and fury on the internet and on TV, all the protests, attacks, and murders. Humanity will survive, and do well. The future will be better, slowly but surely.

Why is optimism important?  
As we go through life, we can be optimistic. I recommend it, because I have found that optimists tend to get more done, and have a better attitude towards both life, and other people. That said, we’re all human, and subject to changes in mood or attitude. I try to keep the time I spend elsewhere to a minimum and then get back to my optimism.

We all have attitudes or viewpoints on life. Often they differ from subject to subject, or even day to day. These attitudes can cause us to discount or even ignore events that don’t fit with our view of the world. If all you saw on the news was the worst of humanity every day, it can become easy to be pessimistic about the future of humanity.

If you thought everyone hated you, and someone did something nice, how likely would it be to change your view of the world? If it was just once, not much, but if it happened every day, eventually your view would change. If we start to see what is going on around us and not just what is shown on the news, our view will start to change.

Where can I apply this in my life?
The first thing to do is kill your TV. Not really, or at least not literally, but you need to try to find the sources in your life of negativity and reduce or eliminate them. For me, that was the usual National TV News. I watch the local news, but I don’t watch the sections when they show the worst of humanity. I do a quick chore, and then come back.

For me, it’s all about protecting my attitude. It is one of my most precious and most vulnerable things. The attitude of a person is like the attitude of a plane. When they are pointed up, they are going to go up. When they are pointed down, they’re going to go down. I try to keep mine pointing up as much as I can, and do what is necessary to keep from having someone try to convince me that it should point down instead.

Now please don’t confuse being optimistic with being unrealistic. It isn’t optimism that make you buy a lottery ticket or a raffle ticket. I won’t go so far as to say it’s foolish, but it certainly isn’t the best bet from the standpoint of statistics. Optimism, instead, is seeing the best in a situation, and not the worst.

Optimism is not willfully ignoring the bad in the world, but balancing it against the overwhelming good in the world. It is looking at the murder on one hand, and on the other hand considering all the great and wonderful things people did for each other that day. In this way, I am optimistic that the future will be better than today, just as today is better than yesterday.

Grab some paper and write down at least three things about which you have really pessimistic feelings. If you come up with more, try to narrow it down to the three things that are the most worrisome. Leave some space between each, because there will be some filling in to do for each item.

For each of your entries, write down examples that support your pessimism, including the source of the information (personal experience, TV news cast, etc). When you have finished writing these down, consider each entry and it’s source. Can you think of any counter examples? Write those down next to your examples, along with their source.

The idea is to examine and broaden your view of the world. If you were pessimistic because of murder stats, could you think of any nice things you had seen people do? It’s hard to compare a murder to holding open a door, but there are thousands of one for each of the other. In my mind, that is cause for some optimism.

It’s your life, you will have to make your own decisions. But I hope you have taken the initiative to examine your life, and to figure out what you will choose to believe, instead of simply going with what the TV or your favorite internet site says.

I have faith in humanity. I believe the future is bright. There will be cloudy days, and some days will be stormy. But I am optimistic about the future. How about you?

From: Twitter, @DalaiLama
confirmed at : it’s his own feed…
Photo by Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious