Optimism as Responsibility

To give up on this world is not an innocuous choice. Believing in love and in humanity matters.

It is not hard to drum up oft-cited arguments for pessimism: the earth’s climate, skyrocketing rates of mental illness, social division, intolerance for differing opinions, any depressing statistic of your choice. It is a particularly common perspective in the younger generations that one shouldn’t have children simply because they believe: “How could you bring someone into this world as it is?”

I know those arguments, as I’m sure all of us do.

I am not here to dispute statistics or take a stance on climate change or social divisiveness. What I will do is share my perspective on what I believe my responsibility is in this life: to maintain optimism. To maintain the idea that this moment is ok, even if this moment feels pretty damn awful. It is to attend to the belief in goodness that I know exists in this world because to know it is to see it, everywhere. It is to continue believing in homeostasis—that the organism of humanity is always self-correcting, responding to changes in the environment, attempting to bring itself back to a state of relative stability. Homeostasis includes steep dips and high highs.

If there’s anything life has taught me over the past few years, it is that we exist in a realm of duality: the dark comes along with the light. The highs include the lows. We could not distinguish joy if it were not for the presence of its opposite; we cannot escape the imminence of pain, just as we cannot escape beauty. There will always be reasons to bemoan the ills of humanity. There will also always be reasons to celebrate, moments to look forward to.

I do not know if my optimism was born with me or was cultivated; it is likely a combination of both. I was given a beautiful childhood, largely free from devastation, and I’ve been taught that there is always someone on my team—and, for that matter, that I’m a cheerleader for many other’s teams, as well. I’ve grown into an adult trusting that there is goodness, here, because I have known goodness from the start.

Experiencing mental illness at a young age taught me, surely, that life includes pain and suffering; my subsequent recovery has shown me that there is another side to pain and suffering, that there is light at the end of tunnels, and that there are so many things worth living for. All of this has bred optimism, belief and confidence in the future.

Beyond the experiences that have shaped (and continue to shape) my perspective, there is something deeper within me that tells me that hope is never lost. To believe in life and love humanity does not feel like a choice, to me: That belief, that love, is already there inside me. To tend to that is my greatest responsibility.

I know the pessimist’s response to optimism is to call it naïveté, or irresponsibility or ignorance.

I respectfully disagree.

One does not have to be relentlessly and insufferably positive to be optimistic, nor does optimism mean to ignore what is wrong.

Optimism simply requires you to look for goodness, beauty, and love where it already exists, and believe more in that than in the suffering, drama, and cruelty humanity also demonstrates.

To give up on life, on love, or on humanity is not an innocuous choice. Neither is the opposite: believing in love and in humanity matters.

As long as there are children on this earth and something growing from the ground, there is a reason for joy, for laughter, for peace and for life. Not only do I believe that, I know it. If that makes me naive, then I’m happy to be called just that.

To goodness, to beauty, and to love—

Maggie