Just read this article "For a happier life, shake off your misplaced optimism" on FT where the author talks about sheer "hope" being one of the key causes of the financial crisis where everyone just had too much faith in the future growth of economy and just forgot to factor in the risk of a calamity or unexpected.The article talks about a very valid point of too much optimism being counter-productive at times. I just could not help but wonder how frequently in life we tread the fine line between optimism and unrealistic expectations. Is a little pessimism healthy for making practical life choices?
All the black swans in the bountiful river of hope exhort us to treat all the unexpected events as the ones which would change us for better in an unexpected way. Does it always help to take life as it comes with a few rare calamities embedded into it by hoping that these events will unfold something unknowingly fruitful? Or does it make sense to sacrifice a bit of optimism in accepting the eventuality of the black swans and making practical decisions before they swim into the hopeful river full of pointed stones questioning our decision-making and foresight?
Have we been over-stretching our optimisim to justify things not turning up as we had expected them to? Is it not better to introspect and think of a better approach for the time to come instead of being so reluctant in accepting "grapes are sour"?At times, we are not in control of anything that happens to us. But it might be better to take it as an event to learn something from instead of clouding it with too much optimism that everything happened for the best.
I will not have even myself question my optimism which is sacred in a lot of ways but I just feel that we tend to overuse the "hope for the best" medicine at times instead of asking ourselves about what really went wrong?
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