Be a Clear-Eyed Optimist

Optimism improves health and helps you live longer, but successful optimists don't just look for the bright side--they use their positive approach to make things better.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Gratitude Diaries, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi.
I'm Janice Kaplan. Thanks for joining me for another episode
and another chance to think more gratefully. Today's tip teach
yourself the few simple tricks that can help you become

(00:23):
a clear eyed optimist. If you're a fan of musicals
like I am, you can probably hum all the wonderful
tunes from Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, including the one
where heroin Nellie for Bush sings about being a cock
eyed optimist. It's a lovely and very sunny song. And
when I saw the show on Broadway some years ago,

(00:45):
starring the incomparable Kelly O'Hara as Nellie, I thought she
was just about perfect. But since then I've come up
with one little problem, which is that the song isn't
fair too optimists. There's nothing cock about looking for the
positive as long as you do it right, and the
best approach is to be a clear eyed optimist. Research

(01:09):
shows that optimists have better health, lower blood pressure, and
fewer cardiovascular problems than other people. Emotionally, they're more resilient
and better able to handle stressful situations, but they don't
get all that by being cock eyed or unrealistic. I
recently heard Angela Duckworth talking about optimism. She's a professor

(01:29):
of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of
the very popular book Grit. She pointed out that you
want to couple your optimism with agency. In other words,
be optimistic about things that you can influence. It's not
going to do any good to be optimistic that it
will be sunny tomorrow. However strong your mindset, you can't

(01:52):
change the weather. She suggests that optimism is important not
as a way of saying that everything will be fine,
but his way of driving yourself to make sure things
are better. So you want to be optimistic about the
things over which you have some control. It's not enough
to be optimistic that life will be good. You want

(02:15):
to be optimistic that you can make the things in
your control a lot better. So how do you do that?
Another well known psychologist, Barbara Frederickson at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, looked some years ago at
the relationship between positivity and resilience. She found that resilient
people are good at transforming negative feelings into positive ones

(02:39):
when given a tough task to do in one study,
they would view it as a challenge and an opportunity
rather than a threat or a problem. And here's the
really good news. When less resilient and optimistic people were
also told to see the task as a challenge rather
than a threat, they also did better and bounced back faster.

(03:01):
In other words, you can make yourself respond more like
an optimistic person. Frederickson says that optimistic people aren't deluding themselves.
They have the same levels of frustration and worry as
everyone else. They're just better at letting go of the
negative parts and focusing on what they can do and
can change. A thirty year study done by researchers at

(03:25):
Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School followed
seventy thousand people and found a strong correlation between optimism
and what the researchers called exceptional longevity. After adjusting for
other conditions, the most optimistic people had a fifteen percent

(03:45):
higher lifespan, and they were fifty more likely to reach
age than the less optimistic. The researchers said they're not
completely sure why that is, but they expect it has
to do with regulating emotions and bouncing back from strang us,
all of which help you live longer and better. Being
a clear eyed optimist means seeing the good and the

(04:08):
bad and choosing what you'll focus on. I like Angela
Duckworth's idea of coupling optimism with agency, but it's also
worth remembering that we can choose to describe any event
in an optimistic way. My wedding anniversary is this week,
and my husband and I were remembering that our wedding

(04:28):
day was sunny and clear and unbelievably cold. The official
temperature in Central Park was zero degrees. We told ourselves
then that being married on the coldest day of the
year made our marriage very special. I suppose there are
other metaphors we could have chosen, but that optimistic view
has led to a long and terrific marriage. I think

(04:51):
wedding day weather brings out optimism in all of us.
There are lots of superstitions. For example, that rain on
a wedding day is good luck. It said to promise fertility, unity,
and a long marriage that won't break. I've even heard
that when you tie a knot in the rain, it's
harder to pull apart. Now, let's be honest, nobody really

(05:12):
wants a gloomy wedding day. So I have to think
that the theory of rain bringing good luck is in
part based on trying to cheer everyone up and find
the silver lining in the very literal dark cloud. But
that's okay, because optimism is best when it causes us
to feel more resilient and positive, to go forward thinking

(05:33):
things will be good and that we can make them better.
So today, remind yourself that being an optimist doesn't make
you cock eyed at all. Being a clear eyed optimist
makes you resilient, successful, and healthier. Thanks for joining me.
I'll be back with more ideas on how to add
gratitude to your life and make every day a little brighter.

(05:55):
Have a great day. The Attitude Diaries is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite shows. H