
Optimism - chair6
https://github.com/raganwald/presentations/blob/master/optimism.md
======
holman
I think this might be one of those times where the title might lead to
confusion in the comment section and leads people a bit astray.

I saw this talk in person at Nordic Ruby, and it was one of the best talks
I've seen (and I've seen a bunch). Strangely enough, I don't really think back
and think much about "optimism" when I think of the talk, though, even though
the talk _is_ about optimists.

My takeaway was the type of tooling and thought processes that are
advantageous when approaching problems and conflict. In many talks — mine
included — people will say something along the lines of "be nice to your
teammates and leave good feedback", for example, but that's really vague.
Reg's talk helped me understand _what_ that type of feedback might be, how it
can be explicitly phrased, and how I can give concrete feedback without being
antagonistic. I think it makes for a more effective argument, especially when
building product, but also it just makes for friendlier humans.

Yeah, this does lead to "optimistic people", hence the title, but I just
thought it was weird to see discussion here about the merits of positive
people versus negative people. I think the talk's a much bigger dialogue about
interacting with humans and, possibly more importantly, yourself.

Anyway, I really liked the talk, and as much as this Markdown is great at
getting the point across, this is one of the talks I'd suggest actually
watching. \m/

~~~
donw
The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be
actionable, specific, and kind.

Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of
concrete actions to take to implement.

For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in
Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your
ability to write readable code by working through the exercises in this book"
is something that can be worked with (especially if you can spend some time to
mentor that person!)

Kindness matters a lot, though, and it is different from niceness.

When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest, but often
the emphasis is on the first word, rather than the second. Things like "The
module you wrote is crap because your code sucks and is hard to maintain."
doesn't help in any way, shape or form.

On the other hand, others that focus on being nice often heap on the praise,
while excluding or downplaying the criticism. "You worked really hard on that
module, and maybe should should spend a more little time refactoring and
cleaning things up" is too nice.

Kindness means sharing the good and the bad, but without being aggressive or
accusatory: "Thanks for the hard work on that module. It does exactly what it
needs to, but I'm really struggling to understand what's going on in there, as
there are some really big methods and classes. Breaking those apart into
smaller separate objects and functions would help a lot."

~~~
tedmiston
> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest

As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest
that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty _for type of people who
appreciate receiving it_.

If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather
get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null"
than a longwinded and "nice" version. I don't need to hear compliments on
what's right... just what can be improved. Some people really value bluntness
and see directness as _more_ friendly because it's honest.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _for type of people who appreciate receiving it_

This is key. I wonder though, what's a good way to signal that to friends and
coworkers? I personally declare Crocker's rules[0], but I rarely have the
opportunity to communicate that to people I'm talking to.

[0] -
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Crocker's_rules](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Crocker's_rules)

"By declaring commitment to Crocker's rules, one authorizes other debaters to
optimize their messages for information, even when this entails that emotional
feelings will be disregarded. This means that you have accepted full
responsibility for the operation of your own mind, so that if you're offended,
it's your own fault. The underlying assumption is that rudeness is sometimes
necessary for effective conveyance of information, if only to signal a lack of
patience or tolerance: after all, knowing whether the speaker is becoming
angry or despondent is useful rational evidence. Two people using Crocker's
Rules should be able to communicate all relevant information in the minimum
amount of time, without paraphrasing or social formatting.

Thus, one who has committed to these rules largely gives up the right to
complain about emotional provocation, "flaming", "trolling", "abuse"
(hopelessly subjective terms) and other alleged violations of etiquette. They
give these rights up in the interest of effective debate."

~~~
gbog
I don't think being blunt is more efficient. First, adding a few "kind"
softener words do not really take so much time, don't you think so? Second,
efficiency in human to human communication is not only a function of raw
information density. Adding well chosen "kind words" may allow the reader to
get some context and a better understanding of the message.

A simple example: say you already communicated with the guy in the past. If
you add a reference to this previous communication, the reader will remember
you better and adjust the frame.

There's so many things passing through language, many are very volatile but
still important. We're not computers. Human language have very little in
common with computer languages.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think it's already captured in Crocker's rules definition - "one authorizes
other debaters to _optimize their messages for_ information, _even when_ this
entails that emotional feelings will be disregarded". It's not about being
rude for the sake of being rude - if a kind word provides some context best, a
kind word should be used. The idea here is to free your interlocutor from
having to constantly censor their communication in order not to accidentally
offend you.

------
PSeitz
TLDR;

To be more optimistic assess good stuff as personal, general, and permanent
and negative as impersonal, specific and temporal.

Make notes everyday about your assessments and correct them.

There is research backing this thesis.

~~~
dominotw
>There is research backing this thesis.

Is there a way for a layman to assess the quality of this research. I've read
many assertions of research on HN on topics similar to this. eg: Meditation is
supposed to help with depression(among other things) but seems like most
research is extremely poor quality [1]?.

1\.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19123875](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19123875)

Most clinical trials on meditation practices are generally characterized by
poor methodological quality with significant threats to validity in every
major quality domain assessed. Despite a statistically significant improvement
in the methodological quality over time, it is imperative that future trials
on meditation be rigorous in design, execution, analysis, and the reporting of
results.

~~~
ryanobjc
There is a ton of research in this area and an entire field of clinical
therapy called "cognitive behavioral therapy".

There's literally too much to cite :-)

~~~
dahart
In that case, I'm sure there's a good survey paper and some decent places to
start for interested non-experts.

Googling for surveys, this was the top result:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584580/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584580/)
(Conclusion: "In general, the evidence-base of CBT is very strong. However,
additional research is needed to examine the efficacy of CBT for randomized-
controlled studies.")

And as much as I want to resist linking to Wikipedia, it really is a great
place to find a bunch of reference material, as well as discover all the
search terms you might need to know.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy)

~~~
steveklabnik
See also "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy".

(I am sorta-kinda a CBT skeptic, at least personally. But I know a lot of
people for whom they claim it's been life-changing, and this is what they
recommend.)

~~~
mercer
I've recently become a bit of a 'fan' of CBT, so I'd really like to hear some
counter arguments!

------
braythwayt
Author here. Ask Me Anything.

~~~
smallnamespace
> Optimists explain good things as being personal, general, and permanent, and
> explain away bad things as being impersonal, specific, and temporary.

Can't this be taken to unhealthy extremes? Sounds exactly like how narcissists
think.

Just look at Trump. He claims personal responsibility for his successes, but
his failures are always one-time events that were other people's fault.

Where should one draw the line?

~~~
lemming
This is actually one of the strongest criticisms of Seligman's work. There's a
clear example of this - after his work was published, the US Army adopted this
as part of their training. After all, the results are fantastic - people
become more psychologically robust in all sorts of ways if they're more
optimistic, and soldiers are frequently in very stressful situations.

However the flip side of this is that it essentially trains people to disclaim
any personal responsibility for bad events, and this has been mentioned in
investigations into atrocities committed by the US military. Unfortunately the
only citations I can find with a quick Google search are from pretty shady or
biased sources, but I do remember seeing some more reliable-looking ones in
the past.

It's also a common claim that CEOs tend to exhibit sociopathic tendencies, and
it's not hard to see how this might apply there. I read Seligman's book
several years ago (and like Reginald, I recommend that almost everyone reads
it - it's fascinating) but when I took the test I only came out as mostly
optimistic. On 4 of the 6 axes I was considered optimistic, but the other two
could be colloquially translated as "when I do bad things I think it's my
fault". Now according to Seligman, if I didn't think like that I'd be way
better off, but I think I'm ok with maintaining the psychological equivalent
of a moral compass there.

~~~
braythwayt
I don't know if this is what you're thinking of, but Dr. Seligman's other big
research work was into "Learned Helplessness."

Seligman did some work with optimism and the forces, but the Learned
Helplessness stuff was taken by two people unconnected with Seligman (James
Mitchell and Bruce Jessen) who turned it into a manual for torturing people.

Seligman's name was dragged through the mud for this, but he didn't do the
work on torture, and his research was into identifying the causes of Learned
Helplessness precisely so people could avoid it. He openly discusses helping
the forces apply his research to aiding captured soldiers _resist_ torture:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/learned-
helplessn...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/learned-helplessness-
torture-an-exchange/)

There is a lot of he-said/he-said at work, but there is no evidence that he
worked with the CIA or anybody else on implementing torture.

Of course, you may be discussing something else entirely!

~~~
lemming
Yes, I remember that as well - it was very unfortunate. It's not what I mean
though, I would swear that I had also seen criticism of the optimism training
in the armed forces with respect to its tendency to disclaim responsibility
for, or otherwise minimise, negative outcomes from one's actions. I can't find
a reference now though, although I haven't had time to Google it properly yet.

------
alexashka
'Personal, permanent, general' \- all of this is easily explained with
'feeling vulnerable'.

When you feel vulnerable, every little thing is about to crush your soul, so
you take everything personally, it will result in permanent damage because
you're so vulnerable and the world of full of danger aka very general and
accurate assertion.

This is an accurate worldview from the perspective of a child with parents who
don't do a good job of building the kid up into a competent adult (everyone I
know)

So the solution is to grow into a self-sufficient adult.

Most adults I know are incompetent at most things in life, the ones who are
depressed/unhappy are either more sensitive/aware, or have just been dealt a
harsher hand in life.

The solution is always the same, and it'll take years, decades even.

But a few small victories toward self-sufficiency will hopefully propel you to
believe in your faculties a bit more - we're very capable little creatures :)

------
gommm
Let me give an optimistic feedback because Reginald's work is well worth it.
Reg's essay and his combinator book have had a huge influence on my career and
my way of thinking as a programmer. I really recommend everyone here to take a
look at the combinator book at
[http://combinators.info](http://combinators.info)

As to the point of the presentation, it's an interesting view of things.
Making a note of my explanations explanations is something I should do.
Introspective exercises like this can sometimes lead to surprising
discoveries.

~~~
matt4077
Reginald's writing is of the kind where you immediately know you're learning
from an incredibly smart and creative guy. I'm somewhat sad to have lost him
to the JS-world, but at least he has expanded into 'soft' topics like
management. As it turns out he's not just analytically brilliant but also full
of humanity.

To have done all he has with 'a frontal lobe tied behind his back' makes it
even more impressive.

~~~
kakuri
We're very grateful to have him in the JS world!

------
mping
Great and honest post. I hope people pay more attention to these topics that
apparently are not tech-centric, but imho it's where the tech stuff actually
comes forth.

Although I can't say that I agree with all, I can surely identify with the
attempt to systematize our way of though, and the division of
personal/impersonal, general/speficif and permanent/impermanent is
interesting.

On a (not so quite) side note, one thing that comes to mind when reading this
is that meditation can be used as an efficient way of controlling your
thoughts, to the point where you can learn to avoid the pitfalls that the
author mentions (ex: taking criticism to heart, pessimisn, etc).

------
StanislavPetrov
> It is not controversial to say that our moods affect the explanations we
> make up for things that happen in our lives. If we are in a good mood and
> someone smiles at us, we think they like us. If we are in a bad mood, we
> wonder if they have read some awkward code we just checked in, and if they
> are laughing at us.

It's not controversial to say that our moods _can_ affect our interpretations
and decisions, but it is (to me anyway) to make a blanket statement that moods
always do effect interpretations and decisions. I find it extremely
controversial to suggest that the answer to this "mood bias" is to willfully
delude yourself by forcing yourself to think "optimistically". The author
suggests that mood is a binary decision between optimism and pessimism. In
life, very few decisions are binary, despite human propensity to view things
as black and white. I would suggest that there is a middle ground between
optimism and pessimism (call it "realism"). As a poker player for several
decades, I can tell you that you are forced to discard optimism and pessimism
(at least at the poker table) and adopt "realism" if you want to be
successful. You can't let your moods affect your judgement. In regards to the
author's statement, when someone smiles at you, you have to dispassionately
calculate what that smile means given the context and other "knowns" you have
to evaluate the situation. If you allow your mood to effect how you judge that
smile will ensure your long-term failure as a poker player.

I'd argue that, with some effort, the same mindset can be extended to every
day life, neither optimistic or pessimistic. Calculating outcomes and
probabilities based on what you know, see, and hear without "mood bias"
because you expect good or bad things to happen. I would agree that if you are
going to make deluded, biased assessments based on your mood that you are
better off doing so with a smile then a frown, but you are best off if you
reject self-delusion all together.

~~~
Firadeoclus
That's an interesting observation. In poker, if you have a clear and
consistent bias other players will move to exploit that bias.

However, it's worth pointing out that poker is a zero sum game if you choose
winning as the measure of success. But many situations are not zero sum.
There's the possibility that optimism could increase the pot for everyone.
Furthermore, enjoying the process can be a reward in itself. If you enjoy
playing poker losing does not necessarily equate to failure.

------
lotyrin
Certainly, an unbiased symmetrical appraisal should be the goal? If the
premise is that the effects upon your past success are equally likely to be
general or specific regardless of their sign, and any asymmetry between your
appraisal of the specificity between positive and negative effects indicates
bias, isn't either bias problematic?

All the worst initiatives that have crashed and burned around me in my career,
smoldering craters, were built and planned by people who thought they were
generally competent and that things would generally be fine, we can bet big on
this one. All their past failures, ruins crumbled under the pressure of
unmanaged complexity or debris scattered by some unforeseen risk, were minor
specifics, won't happen this time.

~~~
resu_nimda
I think the idea is to recognize which side of the coin you naturally or
subconsciously tend to fall on, and to consciously apply an asymmetrical or
biased force to correct for that.

The author naturally struggles with pessimism, so his presentation and
experiences are framed around forcibly developing more optimistic thought
patterns. For the people you describe, perhaps the inverse should be applied
(the same article from that perspective would be an interesting read!).

I would say that it's probably generally better for you (and those around you)
to err on the side of optimism.

~~~
greenshackle
I've read Learned Optimism, Seligman at no point makes the recommendation that
overly optimistic people should be less optimistic. He doesn't seem too
concerned with accuracy, he just says that optimism will make you happier and
more productive, so you should pursue it.

He comes very close to explicitly stating that mild optimistic self-delusion
is good, because it will make you happier.

He acknowledges depressive realism, that is, the finding that depressed people
make more accurate judgments in certain situations, but doesn't really address
it.

------
iamleppert
Am I the only one who read the paper in a kind of wise-man on high high voice,
complete with deep sighs of self-reflecting pauses (perhaps denoted by the '^'
characters?). Are those meant to make us think the author is saying something
profound and important?

I wish I had the motivation to give a self-help lecture at a Rails conference.
I'm sure no one would come though, and if anyone did come, they would probably
hate me for talking about such self-important windbag topics like depression,
motivation, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Signed,

The Perennial Pessimist

~~~
braythwayt
The "paper" is actually the markdown source for a presentation, the ^
characters are markup indicating that what follows is a speaker's note that
does not appear on the slide.

Elsewhere in this discussion, you will find a link to a video of the
presentation, and I trust that if you go looking for evidence that I am a
self-important windbag, you will have no difficulty gathering evidence that is
consistent with your preconceived beliefs.

I'm sorry to hear that you think that if you gave a self-help presentation at
a Rails conference, that nobody would come, and that if they did, they would
hate you. This was not my experience at all, and I hope you learn to distrust
these instincts and develop a more accurate ability to predict when such a
thing would be well-received and when it would not.

One of the things that helped in my case, is that I wrote many of these ideas
up in an essay seven years ago, and it went to #1 on Hacker News that day.
From time to time since then, people have rediscovered the essay and it has
bene positively received. Other essays I have written about Learned
Helplessness and my difficulty learning to play Go have also been well-
received.

To boot, this particular Ruby conference is actually not very Ruby at all, and
the organizers go out of their way to invite speakers who will give non-
technical talks.

So... I had inside information.

~~~
iamleppert
It's a little ironic that you used this insider information to gauge the
reception and audience to your talk about optimism? It's easier to be
optimistic when you can more easily expect an outcome, isn't it?

~~~
braythwayt
“Optimism” in the context of “Learned Optimism” is a term describing the way
people explain past events to themselves, not their expectation of whether
good things will happen to them in the future.

In my case, I was dropping my line where the fish were biting.

------
avindroth
Imagine you are a cyclist. At the end of the 100 miles is a sweet, sweet piece
of cake.

But the road has uphills and downhills: the cognitive boosters and roadblocks.

The optimist only sees the downhills.

The pessimist only sees the uphills.

The realist sees both, and makes a guess on whether this journey is
worthwhile. Is the cake worth the effort?

The optimist, while appealing, will soon be met with unexpected uphills. He
will be distraught, and maybe even give up.

Shoot for the realist, not the optimist.

~~~
zeveb
The engineer hops in car and drives there.

The cynic figures the cake is a lie.

------
cel1ne
Optimism is just one side of the story.

A modern and experimentally grounded system of "emotional styles" is provided
by neuro-scientist Richard J. Davidson, in his book "The emotional life of
your brain".

A bit more nuanced than the "Big Five", he maps emotional traits along six
axes: resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to
context and attention.

Optimism would be "outlook" here, which is interesting because it's a
different thing than resilience. Being optimistic isn't the opposite of being
pessimistic, it's two different skills.

There are neurological explanations for each of the traits and there are
exercises given to move your mind along each axis.

------
snaky
> In a study published October 9 in Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the
> Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London)
> show that people who are very optimistic about the outcome of events tend to
> learn only from information that reinforces their rose-tinted view of the
> world. This is related to 'faulty' function of their frontal lobes

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111009140201.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111009140201.htm)

------
tedmiston
The author linked this written essay form below but it's in a deeply nested
comment that might get overlooked. I found this much easier to read.

[http://braythwayt.com/homoiconic/2009/05/01/optimism.html](http://braythwayt.com/homoiconic/2009/05/01/optimism.html)

Also the 30-min talk was recorded as a video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xjntzo-
mYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xjntzo-mYc)

------
RangerScience
Fake-Edit: I wrote all this, and then realized, I could just ask: Can someone
very familiar with recommendation algorithms comment on the content of
Reginald's presentation?

TL;DR, references to Pandora's recommendation algorithm:

Describe GOOD things broadly, permanently, and personally. Describe BAD things
specifically, temporally, and impersonally.

Now let's think about Pandora. Specifically, Pandora's recommendation that you
thumbs up (upvote) a few things, and thumbs down (downvote) many more things.
Why?

Let's think about Pandora's recommendation algorithm, or, recommendation
algorithms in general (pandora's is good because you can give input every ~5
minutes, as opposed to Netflix, where it's ~1hr). Note: Not an expert! I just
read stuff on the internet a lot.

Pandora takes your upvote, and it promotes an entire region of music-space.
Pandora takes you downvote, and it demotes a very narrow region of music-
space. In other words, it broadly interacts with GOOD things, and specifically
interacts with BAD things. Pandora isn't passing judgement on you, but it is a
personal thing (or, really, per-channel), and you can un-vote anything; so it
at first glance it doesn't apply on the other axis _but_ I wouldn't put it
past them if my upvotes carried across channels (so they're more personal,
while the downvotes stay "impersonal" to each channel), _and_ it might be
better if downvotes decayed in some way over time.

In any event, you can imagine what this looks like in state-space: You start
with a broadly defined region, and you start taking holes out of it.

------
dredmorbius
I'm finding the in-content markup and heavy in-stream visuals tremendously
distracting.

A straight-text extract would be a far more useful presentation online.
Following an @idlewords-type presentation, with images _to the side_ of the
main text would also help.

I have modest interest in reading this, but not so much that I'm willing to
put up with entirely self-inflicted idiosyncracies to do so.

~~~
braythwayt
As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, this is the markdown source for a
presentation. A program called DeckSet turns it into a conventional
presentation.

Having it in markdown enables some useful things like git/github.

~~~
dredmorbius
Having it in markdown form should make outputting to a consumable Web format
(HTML, ePub, PDF) possible.

I'm on a platform (Android) which doesn't have a Markdown translator readily
available. Not even via Termux.

You're publishing, for the public. If you want to provide editorial sources,
that's one matter. If you want to make consumption easy for your readers,
that's another.

You've failed at it. And repeatedly defended that failure rather than remedied
it.

~~~
readymade
Wow

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm not unaware of Ravenwald's reputation on HN. I've liked some of what he's
done myself.

 _Part_ of the reason I'm making a bit of a stink about presentation is that
1) this is a technical site, technique is what we discuss, and 2) I'm aware of
the tools and capabilities for doing this.

 _If_ you've got a system with the tools on it (my tablet, as noted, isn't
one), _then_ it is _completely_ trivial to output a usable and useful format.

 _I do this fairly routinely myself_ , and on _third party sources_. E.g., a
1793 document, running 72 pages formatted, which apparently _doesn 't_ have a
high-quality contemporary formatted version available:
[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lhw2eq4qmnnwxijlcrfyba](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lhw2eq4qmnnwxijlcrfyba)

On my desktop system, where it's supported (again, tablet, not), I've written
1800+ CSS stylesheets (most pretty similar and fairly simple), to fix
annoyances with sites.

It's not that I can't fix this, if arsed enough to do something about it.

It's that deliberately fucking up presentations is hugely disrespectful to
readers. It's why I try to take pains in what I write and style to _not_ fuck
shit up. Which is sometimes difficult (client systems are a complete and total
shitstorm). But not falling over the low-hanging fruit _such as providing
mark-ed up rather than rendered text_ for readers helps a tad.

(And yes, I've ranted at blog editors, magazines, The New York Times, and
Hacker News about various foul-ups.)

There's a greater irony, perhaps, in that my own psychological state is giving
me a literal headache looking at Ravenwald's presentation here, given its
topic. I really don't have the damned spoons for it.

Just sayin'.

------
mherdeg
This kind of dichotomous analysis of the world -- you explain things in X way,
or in opposite-of-X way -- seems to pop up a lot in social psychology.

I also see it in discussion of the idea of "fundamental attribution error"
(when I analyze my own behavior, I attribute mistakes to external factors;
when I analyze others' behavior, I attribute mistakes to internal factors).

------
jlgaddis
Way off-topic but I'm intrigued... anyone know what's up with the presenter
and several members of the audience (primarily in the front row) and their
clothing (dress?)?

I've no idea where this was at, geographically/physically, so maybe it's a
local custom or style or something?

~~~
braythwayt
The conference is [http://www.nordicruby.org](http://www.nordicruby.org). It
was held at a Japanese-styel spa. When you check in, they give you the robe
and slippers, and lots of people choose to retain them throughout the
conference.

~~~
jlgaddis
That's very interesting, reading about it now. Thank you!

------
iaci
> Are optimists more likely to come up with specific explanations for things
> in their life? Or more likely to come up with general explanations?

It seems to me that is just correlation and not causation. It seems that the
cause is the time we spend in action, not thinking about us. When we act, we
are more likely to succeed. When we think about ourselves, we are more likely
to be depressed.

In my experience, the root of these two things is too much thinking about
ourselves.

Quote: Don't think about what is a good man, be a good man. It's alright to
think about that but it doesn't seems to be a good idea. Taking periods twice
every week seems to be a good idea[1].

[1] Turning Pro
([https://sivers.org/book/TurningPro](https://sivers.org/book/TurningPro))

------
marmot777
Hey, way to go, it's brave and cool to write about this sort of thing!

------
unabst
The thing we tend to overlook about our inner dialog is that we actually have
very little control over our thoughts. You know you have a problem when they
become suicidal, because healthy minds simply do not have them.

But even healthy minds will be pessimistic or optimistic from day to day. The
author suggests the explanations we think of dictate our mood, which is true,
but also our mood already dictates those thoughts. Our explanations tend to be
negative when we're feeling negative. You're just sad already.

The question is this: Is your explanation an objective description of truth,
or is it an honest expression of your mood? And it's almost always both. Most
explicit negative or positive explanations are also implicit expressions of
your mood. Our inner dialog is always emotional, so when we reason with
ourselves, we're already reasoning with our emotions, except, they have
already happened.

And here is how it works. Intellectual people are capable of coming up with an
infinite number of reasons. Give it enough thought and you'll find yourself
cataloging reason after reason. The sleight of hand happens when we choose the
reason to go with. If you let your gut choose, you'll go with the one that
most closely aligns with how you feel, because it will physically feel right.
It just clicks. So we reason because of our mood, and further towards that
mood. And if you have a working brain, you are an intellectual person.

And here is the common misconception. A reason does not have to be subjective
or false to be emotional. All your reasons can be true. The problem is with
your selection. Think misuse of statistics [1]. All your data can be true, but
can be made to say whatever you want. Conclusions can be written first, then
made true. If we can do it with statistics, we can certainly do it with our
perception. And this article along with Dr. Martin Seligman methods basically
covers the various ways in which we do just that.

So whenever possible just make your mood explicit. Monitor your mood, and take
hints from the implicit emotions in whatever thoughts that are about something
else. If they're in any way negative or positive, then that's already a clue,
because if you think about it, nature isn't inherently either. And if you're
down, act on it, don't reason with it. Just hit mute, and physically do things
that make you happy (I splurge on a hard root beer or a premium cup of
coffee). If your body and mind are healthy, this will work every time. If
nothing you do makes you happy, don't feel guilty, just go see a doctor.

\---

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_statistics)

(right when I try to block HN to concentrate on work, I find articles like
these, and am heavily rewarded again for my procrastination :)

~~~
trethoniel
> The thing we tend to overlook about our inner dialog is that we actually
> have very little control over our thoughts. You know you have a problem when
> they become suicidal, because healthy minds simply do not have them.

Tell me about it. I've had suicidal thoughts pop up in my mind, unbidden, for
over a decade now. From time to time, at LEAST once a week, I'll just start
visualizing putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger. Or jumping in
front of the train. Or bashing my head in with a rock. All quite vivid.

And I can't just turn it off. I don't tell a lot of people about it because it
frightens them. They've never experienced it before, so they don't understand
that having the thoughts doesn't mean that I want to kill myself or will
attempt to do so. So mostly on my own, I've been working for years to reshape
my internal landscape and to revise the story that I'm telling myself. It's
slow going. I've practically become a functional psychologist through
thousands of hours of highly motivated research. And I'm in therapy, too,
which is a new development. I realized I had reached a plateau where my own
solitary efforts had stalled. I wasn't going anywhere.

But over the years I've seen improvements. We can't control our moment to
moment thoughts, but we can, over time, change the patterns. We can change the
story we tell ourselves. But it takes time. There are no shortcuts. Patience
and hope, those are key.

------
jwcrux
I love this quote: "the plural of anecdote is not data"

~~~
matt4077
It's quite old and I like to say: If you think about it, it actually is.

------
emodendroket
It is often taken for granted that optimism is a positive but I don't think
that is necessarily the case.

~~~
GavinMcG
It seems as though you may be using "optimism" in a different sense than the
article does.

------
caub
that's one heavy-ass .md

------
xrd
Beautiful.

------
dgudkov
>the explanations we make up for things that happen in our lives

I guess that's how religions are born.

------
ebbv
I really enjoyed this, and I've been trying to do similar changes just based
on things I've noticed work better but not formalized in any way. Now I have a
better guideline to go by and a book to read.

------
grabcocque
I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by
Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous.

\---

Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist
of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you
ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just
that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to
cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was.
A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one,
everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every
morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself
how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer
isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful
than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never
Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four?
That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist.
Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when
you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are
going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.

~~~
braythwayt
As the presentation says right at the beginning, "Optimism" in this context
has a specific meaning defined by Dr. Martin Seligman for his work. It refers
to the way people explain good and bad things that have happened to them in
the past.

It does not speak to people's expectations for how things will happen in the
future.

In technical contexts, practitioners often use words in ways that do not match
the common parlance.

