“Happiness comes from within”: Trite but seemingly true.
Optimism, then, should be key to happiness, and I think it is. But critical thinking is a fun and useful part of human existence (mine anyway), and it almost seems that one excludes the other.
Imagine you’re traveling down the freeway on your way to visit out of town friends and you hear a thudding sound coming from your car. The optimist would assume it was not a problem and keep driving. The need for critical thinking (that is, diagnosing the problem) would never arise, and twenty miles down the road you could be stuck with car trouble that might have been avoided.
Here, optimism seems to preclude critical thinking. What about the reverse?
Before you set out for your trip, you decide to do some critical thinking about the state of your car. Perhaps you’re being realistic; the car is old, trouble is possible. You check the tires, gauges, etc. You find a problem, fix it then optimistically set out on your trip, patting yourself on the back for catching it ahead of time.
Critical thinking does not seem to preclude optimism here. But realistic planning ahead may not always be possible; are we stuck with pessimism?
Do you have any personal experience with this? Would you rather be a realist than an optimist? Is pessimism ever necessary? If so, how do you find the balance?
(Peter, this is starting to sound like something you’ve blogged about before–maybe that’s how it got into my brain. If I have some time later I’ll try to find the post to link back; feel free to put it in the comments if you know the one I’m talking about.)
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The question depends on experience. If you have experienced problems or heard of problems on trips then even an optimist could do a basic check. More generally I think that critical thinking requires a problem. No problem no thinking. Optimism is an outlook the things generally will turn out good. So what then generates a problem. Knowledge. A pessimist would assume problems will arise but dependent on experience may not check at all or check the wrong things. So it boils down to the individual.
I am THE most critical thinker around! My mother has always told me that I need to just go with the flow and let some things slip that don’t really matter. After having my son I see what she means. I’m trying to become more optimistic for him so that he will not see me as a spoil sport, no fun kind of mom!
Hi Maile,
Happy to see you back… You used to write great inspiring articles in the past, expect some more in the coming days.
Prince John (i think you remember me)
India