My “Wisdom” on the Being an Optimist About the Future

Tadas ends his blogger wisdom series asking what we’re excited about that no one else is talking about.  I said:

I am excited about how great the future is going to be. We live on a rock spinning 1,000 mph through space in a universe where we might be the only creatures fully aware of it. The whole human existence is a miracle that should have us all waking up in the morning screaming “holy crap, this is amazing”.  Instead, we are caught up in this delusion about never having “enough” and feeling like we need to make everything “great again”.  The future is going to be great.  I am just excited to experience a small slice of it.

Now, I know that this isn’t exactly something that no one is talking about, but we seem to be living in a period where there is a persistent state of pessimism. And while the economy isn’t exactly booming, I do think it’s irrational to believe that the living standards of the median person are in decline. This negativity is particularly easy to get caught up in when you’re involved in the financial markets where most people can’t seem to thinks in time frames longer than hours, days or quarters.

I know there will be periods of turbulence and decline in the short-term, but I think we live in one of the great eras of human productivity. It would be irrational to be excessively optimistic, however, the only thing worse than being excessively optimistic is being excessively pessimistic. Over long periods of time I am confident that we will make great progress so it makes sense to remain a rational optimist. As Churchill said, “I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”