Why we shouldn't be always optimistic.

We all have faced difficult times in our lives. Except the person who hasn't faced any difficult time, everyone must have heard the advice "be optimistic, everything will turn out to be good". Also, we ourselves have given this advice to our dear ones whenever they face difficult times because most of us share the view that being optimistic always helps during tough periods. But by the end of this article we will see that being optimistic doesn't always help.

Optimism represents a mental attitude that the everything will turn out to be good. Being optimistic gives us a hope for the future and hence helps in battling any hostile condition. It is a belief that things will turn good after a tough period, but what if that tough period is a long one, or what if it is really tough to engage ourselves in it.

Vice Admiral James Stockdale (US Air-force)  was held as a PoW among many others after Vietnam War. He survived being tortured by Vietcong for 8 long years. When Stockdale was asked who dint make out of the camps?, "the optimists" came the reply. They were the ones who said we are going to be out by Christmas. And then they said we'd be out by Easter and then out by Thanksgiving and then it was Christmas again. At last they died being heart broken. On the contrary, one thing that helped Stockdale endure the hardship was the belief that he could be held for a long time.

What happened with many of PoWs of Vietnam War is the perfect example why being optimistic doesn't always help. At times, we start neglecting some vital details of the realities by covering it with optimism. In that case, at last when our expectations are not met, we simply just feel being heart broken. Optimism just gives a false hope when we just count on luck which can prove to be fatal in some cases.

So next time when we will face a tough time what we should do? Or what advice should we give to our dear ones when they face any difficult time? The answer is being resilient i.e. to cope with the adverse situation. They are three things that helps in being resilient:

i) Face the Reality: We should always make sure that our optimism doesn't distort the sense of reality. In any adverse situation always attend to each and every detail of the reality.

ii) Search for Purpose: In hostile conditions, often people throw up their hands and cry, "why always me?". This attitude makes them feel like victims and living through hardship carries no lesson for them. On the contrary, if we seek for a purpose in hard times, it will help us in navigating through the labyrinth of hard times.

iii) Be Resourceful: Not always, we are equipped with the tools we may require to solve a problem. In that situations, we should make use of everything whatever at hand. We need to change our perspective to see how a thing can help us in an unconventional way.

Ref.: Diane L. Coutu, "How Resilience Works," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 80, No. 5, May 2002.