I recently watched this talk on “the optimism bias” on TED and found it very interesting, because I myself am an a extremely optimistic person.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias.html
Because I am an extreme optimist, during the talk I could relate to a lot of what the woman was saying. It made me realize throughout my life that I have been looking up and haven’t been planning for pitfalls, negative outcomes and mistakes. However by learning from this talk I would like to make a great change and prepare much more for the downsides of anything that could happen along the path of life.
Prior to watching this talk, I’ve always believed that I am just an extremely lucky person, however now I understand that I’m just have an extremely optimistic view and have a high success rate for the things I do. I am extremely glad I was born with this perspective on life because I believe I am able to shed light on those who do not always look on the bright side. For example, growing up I’ve realized that for the most part I’ve always made good friends with pessimist, I believe this is most likely because opposites attract but also because we need each other to keep a proper balance emotionally in certain situations.
I’m also beginning to believe a lot of has to do with the environment I’ve grown up in. Knowing that Toronto is an extremely multicultural place might have a big factor in having a very optimistic view. I believe having this multicultural environment allows you to believe the fact that despite the fact that people come from different places all over the world, a society is still able to fully function. Or the fact that I have a relatively big family and have learned that sharing not only helps, but benefits everyone else.
I write this post mainly because throughout my experiences of being abroad, I’ve found for the most part, a lot of people are very pessimistic and unsatisfied with their currently life. While at the same time, I have constantly been complimented on my perkiness and positive energy. Some people have said “That’s just how Canadian’s are” to describe it.
yeah!
