We explain what optimism is and why it is considered a value. Also, messages of optimism and what is pessimism.
What is optimism?
In psychology, ethics and philosophy it is known as optimism to the doctrine that tends to wait for the most favorable things to happen, as well as to highlight the most positive and beneficial aspects of reality.
It is a spiritual disposition with many points in common with the concept of hope, and completely opposed to that of pessimism.
The term optimism comes from the Latin optimum, which translates “the best”, and was first used to refer to a philosophical position by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in 1710, in his philosophical treatise Theodicy’s essays on the goodness of God, the freedom of man and the origin of evil. According to this thinker, optimism part of the assumption that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds.
Artistic and cultural movements of central importance in human history, such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, often assumed optimism as part of their perspectives, since they were movements full of faith in humanity and in the future, opposed to earlier times and movements such as the Middle Ages and the Baroque, essentially pessimistic.
This opposition between pessimism and optimism it has often been illustrated through the portraits of the Greek philosophers Heraclitus, the weeping, and Democritus, the laughing, respectively.
These were later represented by crying and laughing masks, thus giving rise to the classic symbols of tragedy (a sobbing mask) and comedy (a smiling mask).
Those who adhere to this philosophical or psychological model are known as optimists.
Optimism as value
To optimism often it is credited with the ability to mobilize positive energies and promote better performance in men, by eliminating anxiety, fear and depression (which leads to paralysis) by autosuggestion.
Optimists often face their misfortunes or mistakes through humor and resilience, making the best of what has gone wrong, and to that extent they can be much more successful than pessimists.
On the other hand, to optimism often he is reproached for his tendency towards self-deception and the romanticization of the real, that is, to fall into naivety and benevolence.
However, from a motivational point of view, optimism is always more productive and mobilizing than pessimism, even if the latter may be more realistic or critically helpful.
Optimism messages
Some phrases and proverbs related to optimism can be:
- Who does not bet, does not win.
- Only those who believe they are defeated are defeated.
- If life gives you lemons, learn how to make lemonade.
- Every cloud has a silver lining.
- He who falls is not weak, but he who gets up is strong.
- To God praying and with the mallet giving.
- The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
- In a mind full of fear there is no place for dreams.
- If you cry for the sun at night, the tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
- There is no evil that lasts a thousand years, nor a body that resists it.
- No calm sea made a sailor an expert.
- Hope is the last thing you lose.
- God squeezes but does not drown.
- Everything in life is a matter of attitude.
- Life is lived one day at a time.
Pessimism
Pessimism is the philosophical and psychological tendency totally contrary to optimism, that is, the one that assume ours is the worst of all possible worlds And that everything that could go wrong will.
Is about a critical stance linked to negativity, as well as with the philosophical doctrines of nihilism, existentialism and anarchism.