Journey To Optimism With Eduardo Punset

The Higuera de la Serna City Council went into bankruptcy and its neighbors, instead of complaining, got down to work to take on the tasks that the city council previously hired and that now it could not take on. In their spare time everyone offered their help to take on everything from cleaning to masonry. This case is just one more proof that in difficult moments the union can awaken optimism frightened by the circumstances.

The neuroscientist Tali Sharot of the Univertity College London, maintains, in an interview conducted by Eduardo Punset, that in the same way that we experience optical illusions, sometimes we believe we see something that is very different from reality because we succumb to other types of illusions, like the ones we describe below:

The illusion of superiority by which we tend to think that we are superior to the average. This especially happens in academia, where more than 97% of people think they are superior. Which is impossible, that’s why it’s an illusion.

The illusion of introspection refers to our belief that our motives are well founded, that is, whenever we do something, we do it for some reason, when in fact there are times when there is no reason. We simply create a motive to try to explain to ourselves why we do something.

The optimistic bias refers to overestimating our possibilities of living positive experiences and underestimating our possibilities of living negative experiences. For this reason, we come to overestimate our longevity or our professional success and underestimate the possibilities that our partner will break up or fall ill.

Advantages of optimism

The optimistic bias has many advantages and disadvantages. Among the first, we can distinguish the following:

• Health : being optimistic favors our health. There are two fundamental reasons for this: if we wait for the future to bring us good things, stress and anxiety are reduced. For example, an optimistic patient tends to do things that make him healthier: he follows the doctor’s advice, takes better care of himself, and is usually more committed to treatment.

• Reaching goals : optimism can lead to better academic performance and the achievement of our goals, since if after a bad result you think you are going to do well, you are going to scare off discouragement. Studies on optimism have shown that  people who impose this bias on the way they see reality work longer hours, are more persistent, and end up making more money.

But optimism, although it has very important advantages, can also have disadvantages, such as the ones we list below.

If we believe that everything is going to be fine, we may not take the necessary precautions:  we do not do medical tests as often as we should, we do not wear a helmet on the motorcycle or a seat belt in the car or we do not look before crossing because We think that nothing is going to happen to us. That is to say, in optimistic people we often find a distorted and little adaptive feeling of invulnerability.

A person who is optimistic thinks that he will finish the activities he has to do much sooner, whether it refers to homework at school or a task at work. The time and effort that will be needed is underestimated.

Optimism is especially negative when it is opposed to action, either because it can lead to the inhibition of preventive measures or because it is usually subject to faith in chance rather than belief in oneself.

How an optimist differs from a pessimist

Studies have been conducted on optimism and pessimism in students who were subjected to a test. The optimists who failed were not disappointed because they thought they would do better next time, and the pessimists felt worse because they thought it proved they couldn’t pass the test.

On the other hand, the optimistic students who did pass the exam thought they had done great and that the next exam would also do well, while the pessimists who passed the exam thought it was a matter of luck and felt worse.

Therefore, a pessimist is not disappointed that he has not achieved his goal, but is motivated to continue and do better. The biggest difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that the former always knows how to take advantage of what is a problem for someone else.