Intelligent Optimism: Happy Despite Everything

Economist and scientific popularizer Eduard Punset exposes the secret of optimism in three fundamental points that, according to him, attract true happiness. They are: hope in life, personalized medicine and knowledge of emotions. These, then, are the keys to an optimism that, in a critical situation, can crumble in the face of anyone’s will and weakened mental health. If it’s that way… Do you have little hope to be happy? By no means, if you dare to know and put into practice the keys of intelligent optimism, there is much hope.

But… What is smart optimism?

Many people still think that optimism is linked to ignorance or the “denial of reality”, that pessimism is related to “mental enlightenment”. These statements support a kind of optimism that focuses on being happy for the sake of being happy, turning a blind eye to reality in order not to get hurt. It can be said that psychological offices are full of this kind of optimism, of people who, unaware of what is happening around them, and themselves, find themselves at a time when they discover that they have been deceived for a while and that, for their Surprisingly, neither they nor those who live near her are as she thought they were.

This has nothing to do with real optimism. Intelligent optimism arises from positive psychology, a very current trend that has found a different approach to psychological treatment, focusing its efforts on the study of the elements of mental health, instead of focusing on illness, as was once very common in psychology. . Maria Dolores Avia, Professor of Personality Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid, and writer of the book “Otimismo Inteligente”, demonstrated its importance in the development of the individual.

Four commandments to make you happy despite everything.

• Open Your Eyes:  We all remember that famous movie of the same name that portrayed the distorted self-image as well as a subjective image of what was going on around the character. This is precisely what those who practice intelligent optimism should avoid: keeping their eyes closed to reality itself and what is happening around them. Prejudices (positive or negative), fear and accommodation are the worst enemies of self-knowledge.

• Nourish your mind and body:  You cannot be happy after all if you are too apathetic, if you are self-destructive (anger, nostalgia, guilt, melancholy, etc.) and are hopeless. There is no faith greater than that driven by willpower to reach a goal. If you feed your soul and body with new goals, you will never stop being an optimist.

• “Cultivate the Small Pleasures”:  Coming directly from the film by Jean Pierre Jeunet and Mac Caro, Amelie, this phrase is the epitome of intelligent optimism. Sometimes we are so busy trying to make big goals a reality, that we forget about the everyday, the little everyday pleasures that really give meaning to our entire lives. The intelligent optimist will be a faithful follower of these daily delights, reinforcing the good days and being himself in the bad days.

• Phrases like, “I’ve been through this”, “I’m too old for this”, don’t help at all. Life is a daily struggle and, curiously, the same battle of wanting to grow, learn, create and break down walls is a guarantee against disease.

Feel alive while you are alive!