![]() The research shows that hope is a far more potent force. ![]() Just as Stockdale found-and I’ve found in a less dramatic way during the pandemic-optimism often isn’t the best way to improve your well-being. There’s a word for believing you can make things better without distorting reality: not optimism, but hope. Some of the people who have done the best have been downright pessimistic about the outside world, but they’ve paid less attention to external circumstances and focused more on what they could do to persevere. Those who have struggled the most have been the optimists always predicting a return to normality, only to be disappointed as the pandemic drags on. And they died of a broken heart.”Īmong my circle of acquaintances, I have noticed a less dire version of this pattern over the past year and a half, as COVID-19 has slowly transformed from a temporary inconvenience into a new way of life. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. As the vice admiral, James Stockdale, later told the business author Jim Collins, “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go … And Easter would come, and Easter would go. Those who didn’t tended to be the most optimistic of the group. ![]() Some of them survived the appalling conditions others didn’t. Navy vice admiral who was held for more than seven years in a North Vietnamese prison noticed a surprising trend among his fellow inmates. “ How to Build a Life ” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.ĭ uring the Vietnam War, a U.S.
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