Baby Boomers, who meet weekly for their “coffee chat,” here at Seal Rock, say they still view life with “silver linings.” However, this is not true for many in America who are looking at the glass have empty these days due to a lingering recession, fears about war, global warming and fractured family life. In turn, those who responded to health research in a recent Time Magazine report on why some people have optimism, and some do not; questioned if “goodness arises from optimism,” and “it’s not what happens but what you do about it.”
In general, experts view a “healthy brain” as being optimistic about life and wanting to do good for others.
“We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We watch our backs, weigh the odds, pack an umbrella. But both neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic. On average, we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being. People hugely underestimate their chances of getting divorced, losing their job or being diagnosed with cancer; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; envision themselves achieving more than their peers; and overestimate their likely life span (sometimes by 20 years or more),” explains a recent Time Magazine special report on optimism, or the lack of it in American and the world today.
“We follow the view of George Bernard Shaw who said: ‘You see things; and you say why? But I dream thing things that never were; and I say why not.’ We think Shaw was right, but don’t ask the young people today about this and they will just laugh at you because, really, they’re so negative,” says Sarah, a Seal Rock “Boomer” who, along with five others over the age of 60 meet weekly to discuss life, their kids and grandkids and how they can make their part of this world a little brighter.
As for Shaw, who died 60 years ago this past November, he was famous for being an Irish playwright, but Sarah – a self-described Shaw fan – notes that “Shaw also is the founder of the London School of Economics. So his famous quote on ‘dreaming things that never were’ is not pie in the sky, but based on real truth that people can make their lives better if they really think they can.”
In fact, if Shaw were alive today, Sarah says we would view him as an optimist because he wrote highly articulate pieces about the good in life after he turned middle age. Shaw also wrote more than 60 plays that focus on the “drama” of life and why we have freedom of will to make our lives a heaven or a hell.
And, like these “Boomer” who have troubles in their life, also enjoy a vein of comedy in their attitudes which makes their everyday lives “all the more tolerable due to optimists like Shaw,” adds Sarah about her hero.
“I ask kids today – and by kids I mean those under 40 – if what they’re doing right now is making life better for others? I ask them what have they done recently to make life better for themselves, family and friends? I ask them to get the hell off their behinds and make a change. But, you know what, you can’t really tell people anything these days because they’re so hunkered down in the ‘me’ that they don’t see the forest through the trees,” states Joseph, another member of this Seal Rock Baby Boomer coffee meeting group during a recent interview.
“The kids today are bystanders. They are voyeurs online who live in a virtual world. They can’t innovate to save their lives. It’s a shame because that old adage is true — youth is wasted on the young,” adds Joseph who’s the father of four with seven grandkids. Time presents optimism as a “human quality”
What sparked such talk from these Baby Boomers – who admit they should be playing cards or golfing rather than musing over the world today – is the recent optimism study in Time Magazine’s May 28th edition titled “The Optimism Bias.”
“The belief that the future will be much better than the past and present is known as the optimism bias. It abides in every race, region and socioeconomic bracket. Schoolchildren playing when-I-grow-up are rampant optimists, but so are grownups: a 2005 study found that adults over 60 are just as likely to see the glass half full as young adults,” stated the May 28 Times Magazine report.
“You might expect optimism to erode under the tide of news about violent conflicts, high unemployment, tornadoes and floods and all the threats and failures that shape human life. Collectively we can grow pessimistic — about the direction of our country or the ability of our leaders to improve education and reduce crime. But private optimism, about our personal future, remains incredibly resilient. A survey conducted in 2007 found that while 70% thought families in general were less successful than in their parents’ day, 76% of respondents were optimistic about the future of their own family,” the report added.
President Obama is “a big one for hope, and talk of hope in this recession, and why not, because that’s the job of a president,” adds Joseph who points to FDR’s “fireside chats” on the radio during World War II “as keeping hope alive in America when it was darkest.”
“Even if that better future is often an illusion, optimism has clear benefits in the present. Hope keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress and improves physical health. Researchers studying heart-disease patients found that optimists were more likely than nonoptimistic patients to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise, thereby reducing their overall coronary risk. A study of cancer patients revealed that pessimistic patients under the age of 60 were more likely to die within eight months than nonpessimistic patients of the same initial health, status and age,” stated the Time Magazine report on optimism.
In fact, the report linked a growing body of scientific evidence that points to the conclusion “that optimism may be hardwired by evolution into the human brain. The science of optimism, once scorned as an intellectually suspect province of pep rallies and smiley faces, is opening a new window on the workings of human consciousness. What it shows could fuel a revolution in psychology, as the field comes to grips with accumulating evidence that our brains aren’t just stamped by the past. They are constantly being shaped by the future.”
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