We explain what optimism is and why it is considered a value. Also, messages of optimism and what is pessimism.
What is optimism?
In psychology, ethics Y philosophy is known as optimism to doctrine that tends to wait for the most favorable things to happen, as well as to highlight the most positive and beneficial aspects of the reality.
It is a spiritual disposition with many points in common with the concept of hope, and totally opposed to that of pessimism.
The term optimism comes from the Latinoptimum, which translates "the best", and was first used to refer to a philosophical position by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in 1710, in his philosophical treatiseTheodicy's essays on the goodness of God, the freedom of man and the origin of evil. According to this thinker, optimism starts from the assumption that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds.
Artistic and cultural movements of central importance in the history of the humanityHow were the Renaissance and the Illustration, they often assumed optimism as part of their perspectives, since they were movements full of faith in humanity and in tomorrow, opposed to previous times and movements such as the Middle Ages and the Baroque, essentially pessimistic.
This opposition between pessimism and optimism it has often been illustrated through the portraits of the Greek philosophers Heraclitus, the weeping, and Democritus, the laughing, respectively.
These were later represented by crying and laughing masks, thus giving rise to the classic symbols of the tragedy (a sobbing mask) and the comedy (a smiling mask).
Those who adhere to this philosophical or psychological model are known as optimists.
Optimism as a value
Optimism is often credited with the ability to mobilize positive energies and promote better performance in man, by eliminating anxiety, fear, and anxiety by autosuggestion. depression (leading to paralysis).
Optimists often face their misfortunes or mistakes through humor and resiliencemaking the best of what has gone wrong, and to that extent they can be much more successful than pessimists.
On the other hand, optimism is often reproached for its tendency towards self-deception and romanticization of the real, that is, to fall into naivety and benevolence.
However, from the motivational point of view, optimism is always more productive and mobilizing than pessimism, even if the latter may be more realistic or critically useful.
Optimism messages
Some phrases and proverbs related to optimism can be:
- Who does not bet, does not win.
- Only those who believe they are defeated are defeated.
- If the life gives you lemons, learns how to make lemonade.
- Every cloud has a silver lining.
- He who falls is not weak, but he who gets up is strong.
- To God praying and with the mallet giving.
- The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
- In a mind full of fear there is no place for dreams.
- If at night you cry for him Sun, the tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
- There is no evil that lasts a thousand years, nor a body that resists it.
- No calm sea made a sailor an expert.
- Hope is the last thing you lose.
- God squeezes but does not drown.
- Everything in life is a matter of attitude.
- Life is lived one day at a time.
Pessimism
Pessimism is the philosophical and psychological tendency totally contrary to optimism, that is, the one that assumes that ours is the worst of all possible worlds and that everything that could go wrong will.
It is a critical position linked to negativity, as well as to the philosophical doctrines of the nihilism, existentialism Y anarchism.