5 Misconceptions About Optimism

There are some misconceptions about optimism that prevent us from experiencing it properly. Today we will shed light on all these ideas.

Optimism is considered a way to experience life much better.  However, the misconceptions about optimism that may be causing us to make several mistakes when we think about it.

Today we will address 5 of these false ideas about optimism, which we will analyze in depth and on which we will reflect to uncover some myths that surround this idea.

1. Optimism solves problems

This is one of the first misconceptions about optimism. He urges us to reflect on the relationship between optimism and problem solving.

It is believed that if you are optimistic you will have much less problems, or that these will be reduced. However, this is a big mistake. Being optimistic will not reduce, far from it, it will solve problems.

What this attitude towards life does is help us to have a much healthier vision of all those difficulties that can come to us and that we have to face.

Instead of adopting a victimizing or pessimistic attitude, we learn to see opportunity in difficulty and to accept what comes to us without regretting it or feeling unhappy.

Well, although many times we believe that we have bad luck, problems do not choose us. Everyone has problems and we were not going to be the exception. The question is how we are going to deal with them.

2. Being optimistic will make you happier, another of the misconceptions about optimism

Many people think that those who are optimistic are happier. What’s more, they believe that optimistic people are happy all the time, something that is far from reality.

We all have better and worse moments. Always staying in joy is something complicated, since there are situations that will lead us to suffer stress, anxiety, worries, sadness, anger.

Each and every one of these emotions is not incompatible with being optimistic. Because being optimistic is a positive attitude towards life. As human beings, obviously, we are going to feel sadness, anger, joy and sadness.

The positive thing is knowing how to learn from these emotions, manage them properly, know what they want to tell us and how we can improve our attitude towards them. Optimism does not try to suppress negative emotions, but to learn from them in order to promote personal development.

3. Optimistic people live in an unreal world.

This is another of the false ideas about optimism that all those people who tend to have a very pessimistic and negative attitude about what surrounds them believe.

They consider the world to be a terrible place where misfortunes happen every day. Therefore, being optimistic is not something feasible. They believe that optimistic people have created an ideal world in their minds. A world in which they live as if it were a bubble, without opening their eyes to the true reality.

The truth is that optimistic people know well everything that happens in the world and what happens to their neighbor, a relative, even themselves.

However, they are aware that everything can be learned, that any difficult situation can be a possible example of improvement for all. They don’t live in an unreal world, they just have a much more encouraging perspective on what’s going on around them.

4. Optimism equals “I don’t care about anything.”

We are in the fourth of the false ideas about optimism, in which it is considered that being optimistic implies that we do not care about anything. We do not care about misfortunes, we do not care about losing work or money, we are indifferent if things go wrong for us.

However, this is not so. Being optimistic is seeing the positive side of everything negative that can happen. This does not mean that we do not care what happens, but rather that, instead of taking refuge in pain and victimhood, we struggle to emerge afloat.

5. You can be optimistic all the time

This is the last of the misconceptions about optimism and it is that of course we cannot be optimistic all the time ! If so, perhaps we would be falling into what we know as false optimism.

However, as we have mentioned, being optimistic is an attitude towards life. Although this does not imply that, at times, we are disappointed, we feel sad and sadness comes down on us.

However, what an optimistic person does is embrace that disappointment and use it to grow. Embrace that sadness to later release it. Ultimately, you don’t hold on to those natural emotions: you accept them and let them go. Thus he manages to be optimistic.

Do you consider yourself an optimistic person? Do you know of any other misconceptions about optimism? Remember that being optimistic is an attitude, however, beware of falling into false optimism!