Don’t Believe Everything You Think

How do you see the world? Through rose colored glasses? A glass half full? Or do you consider yourself a realist? We would wager that most just want to see the world accurately; we want to see the truth. How confident are you that you see the truth? Here’s a fun fact; speaking visually, humans see close to zero percent (.0035%) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spiders can see ultraviolet light, snakes can see infrared. Our eyes see laughably little of what’s out there. And even what we humans do see, we each perceive it differently. Scientists suggest that mood, feelings, and memories can affect our perception of colors. That means that two people look at the same object, but see it differently (Wonderoplis, 2014). In terms of our perceptions, we are all alone in our heads. 

And this concept doesn’t just apply to what we see visually. Our thoughts and feelings come to us filtered through our built-in brain chemistry, our childhood experiences, the movie we watched yesterday, and the taco we ate for lunch. We view what’s ‘out there’ through a multitude of unique lenses of genetics, biology, and experience and by the time what’s ‘out there’ reaches our inner world, countless distortions have occurred. Even within our own heads our own reality changes according to our mood states. A fender bender on the way to a funeral is a different experience than one on the way to a party. So what is reality? The wise will acknowledge they don’t really know. We all perceive life very limitedly and uniquely through our own individual filters. So when a pessimist insists she is a realist...where’s the truth in that?

Viewed from a certain perspective, isn’t it the truth that practically every moment we experience can be good, or at least neutral? What are you experiencing right now? At this moment you are likely basically okay. There is enough air to breathe. The walls are still standing. You are probably not in imminent danger, and as psychologist Barbara Fredrickson puts it, “no one is sticking pins in your eyes” (Fredrickson, 2009).

Here’s a glimpse of where we’re headed: Optimism is not denying the negative or plastering on a ‘fake it to make it’ smile. May we suggest that optimism is the ability and willingness to observe the entire inner landscape of thoughts, feelings and perceptions (whether judged as positive or negative), and choosing the perspective and subsequent action that maximizes one’s well-being. This includes recognizing that our thoughts and interpretations of experiences come to us through filters and are not necessarily absolute truth. And even if we could be absolutely sure that a thought or perception was the absolute truth, operating from an optimistic perspective may just be the best way to get what we want out of life. 

Consider the analogy of your mind as a stage. All kinds of thoughts make their way across the stage of your awareness, like actors competing for attention. Try as you might, you often can’t control what wanders out there, but as the Director, you can control where you shine the spotlight of your attention. And, interestingly, the thoughts that get more of the spotlight grow, and start to crowd out the thoughts that you don’t feed with your attention. Your life performance ends up being the story you tell by where you’ve chosen to shine the spotlight of your attention. As a result, optimism is learning to skillfully direct the spotlight of attention to those thoughts and feelings that maximize your well-being. In the sections that follow, we’ll show you how.