Mind set: Optimism’s bright side

Howwe love Bollywood films with their generous doses of optimism, sentimentalityand happy endings in which we all secretly believe, until the lights come on andwe see the paanstained carpet underneath our feet Now, Bollywood’sfeel-good formula is finding globalappeal The Golden Globe-winningSlumdogMillionaire may be a foreign film but itscentral character Jamal is as hopelessly romantic as any Hindi film hero Hecares nothing for money but will do anything to be reunited with his.childhoodlove Latika. When he finally finds her living as a rich gangster’sgirlfriend, he pleads for her to run away with him “What will we liveon?” Latika asks anxiously, in the story’s key exchange“Love,” he says, simplyNaive and foolish you wouldhave called it in a pre-Obama era when the world wasn’t full of hope andfired up by the possibility of change But perceptions have changed Littlewonder thatSlumdog’sunabashed idealism has struck a chord with Western audiences, with criticsputting.it in the same league as the Frank Capra classic It’s a WonderfulLife. So has pessimism goneout of fashion? Cynics, check your glass: Not only is it half full but someonemight just come along to top it up American poet McLandburgh Wilson hit thenail on the head: “Twixt the optimist and pessimist/ The difference isdroll/ The optimism sees the doughnut/ But the pessimist sees the hole”Perhaps, more people are enjoying the doughnutNot that there aren’tenough reasons to be pessimistic – terrorism, recession, climate change,corporate fraud etc It’s.also much easier to be pessimistic because ifevents do turn out badly, there is at least the morbid satisfaction of havingbeen proved right. In the unlikely circumstances that things end well, it can bea pleasant surprise Pessimism— or what some call realism moulded from bitter experience — is likea virus, which is why most of us like the sunny dispositions of our friends,spouses, bosses and leaders I remember a perpetually despondent colleague Likethat character in Peanuts, she appeared to be enveloped by a black cloud ofgloom It cloaked the office as well A grumpy leader can have the same effecton a whole country.ButObama’s “Yes We Can” attitude is having the opposite effect.Not just America, the world is suddenly feeling more optimistic Instead ofasking “Why”, people are saying “Why not” The politicsof happiness a la Ronald Reagan seems to be working “I’m here totell you that there are better days ahead,” Obama said at an electionrally in Indianapolis after talking about the economic gloom “I knowthese are tough times, and I know that many of you are anxious about the futureBut this isn’t a time for fear or for panic”Worrying about all.the grimthings that can happen in the future can be very bad for the health. In 2007, astudy by researchers in the Netherlands found that people who aretemperamentally pessimistic are more likely to die of heart disease and othercauses than the naturally optimisticAnd it doesn’t justaffect the health, it can be bad for the nation In contrast, optimism can berevolutionary, points out writer and environmentalist Alex Steffen “Whereno one believes in a better future, despair is a logical choice, and people indespair almost never change anything Where no one.believes a better solution ispossible, those benefiting from the continuation of a problem are safe. Where noone believes in the possibility of action, apathy becomes an insurmountableobstacle to reform But introduce intelligent reasons for believing that actionis possible, that better solutions are available, and that a better future canbe built, and you unleash the power of people to actShared belief in a betterfuture is the strongest glue there is”Despite some of the obviouspositives of positive thinking, most of us revel in the gloom Not only do welike to believe that tomorrow.will be worse than today but that nothing can bedone about it. But instead ofthinking of the future, think of the present Think of the internet, of betterliving standards, of longer life spans, or imagine how it was to be a woman or aDalit or gay 30 years ago Weall want the world to be a better place but we belie the hope if we refuse toacknowledge the progress that has been made If the world’s problems lookintractable, it is because we have given up thinking of solutions and havelittle faith in the people who are trying to put them into practice.As LeonardCohen put it: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s where thelight gets in.” So where are the chinks of light? Or can we not see thembecause of the shadows we are accustomed to?Almost no one likes to confessto optimism, which is usually dismissed as the refuge of unrealistic foolsThere is always a sense that things are going downhill The golden age alwayslies in the past, never in the future It is this deficit in social optimismthat has to be addressed Inthe epicMahabharata,King Yaksha asks Yudhishthir what he thinks is the most curious aspect of.lifeYudhishthir plies, “Mortality is a fact of life.