Optimism

How do you tell when optimism is reasonable?

Perhaps you regard optimism as never reasonable.

When have you been overly optimistic, and what have been the results?

Perhaps you associate unwarranted optimism with gullibility.

You may possibly associate optimism with excessively risky behaviours.

When, if ever, have you experienced tragic optimism?

When, if ever, have you experienced toxic positivity? 

What do you know about psychological manipulation?

Excessive optimism and excessive positivity are associated with the selfish expression of positive affectivity.  They may possibly even be associated with superficial charm.

What is your acquaintance with positive psychology?

What do you know about civility and hygiene in terms of reason and reasons?

How much value do you place on reasonableness? 

What value do you place on your reasonableness?

What value do you place on your emotions?

How do you assess dangers, and respond to them?

Optimism is an attitude associated with pleasant expectations.

Yet it may merely be a gamble.

Perhaps you usually associate optimism with rashness.

Perhaps you regard an optimistic attitude as unrealistic.  But is pessimism more realistic?

Perhaps you associate optimism with appreciation. 

Perhaps you mistake appreciation for optimism.

How do you interpret adversity?

Although actions have long been thought to speak louder than words, quiet actions can often have a much more positive, long-term influence than noisy activities.

Perhaps you associate optimism with intrusive cheerfulness and interpersonal insensitivity, particularly in times of crisis.

You may be familiar with the Australian phrases 'She'll be right' and 'No worries'.

You may be familiar with the ironic term 'The lucky country'.

How do you identify insensitive, and stupid, optimism?

Some cultures discourage insensitive practices.

Other cultures ban them.  

Some cultures even encourage insensitive actions.

How do you decide whether an action is extravagant or not?

How do you decide whether an action is otherwise insensitive?

Perhaps you are a victim of toxic positivity.

Perhaps you had a parent exuding it.

Perhaps you have a boss exuding it. 

Perhaps it exudes into your psyche through social media and advertising and political propaganda.

Perhaps your optimism causes you to practice poor hygiene.

Perhaps your optimism encourages you to ignore your health, and other people's health.

When does the denial of suffering become an obscenity?

Perhaps you always associate optimism with denialism.

Perhaps you are not interested in the truth of history, or the truth of nature.

Toxic positivity is a bizarrely carnivalesque approach to eudaimonia and prosperity.  It ignores the lived experience of most people and the difficulties they face in life.

Perhaps you associate optimism with aggressively enthusiastic competitiveness, and greed.

A practitioner of toxic positivity is either a charlatan or mentally ill, or both.  Such a person either pretends there is no reason to worry about anything, primarily in order to gain from duping people, or is deluded enough to believe there is nothing worthy of concern, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps you exude toxic positivity as an expression of your self-assessed superiority.

Much toxic positivity is indicative of vanity and other expressions of egotism.  It may even be indicative of a feeling of invincibility.  It is a denial of vulnerability.

Perhaps you associate optimism with happiness, and with success, and with health, and prosperity, and attractiveness.

You may or may not associate optimism with activism and/or philanthropy and/or civility.