Examples of Fatal Optimism
From uncounted experiences with people, I have learned that if people WANT something they’ve done to turn out well, they keep behaving as though it will, even if their behavior demonstrates no indication that it will produce a positive result.
In other words, we believe what we want to believe.
Some examples:
- We haven’t studied sufficiently for a test in school, but we think, “Oh, it’ll be okay. I passed the last test. This one will turn out.” So we don’t study, and we perform poorly, perhaps even fail.
- We invest more time and money in a business or other venture where the results consistently prove that our efforts will not have a positive yield. But we’ve invested our souls, so we double-down on our efforts, and we fail even worse than we could have thought possible.
- We’ve been told that diet and exercise will maintain our health and prolong our lives, but we say, “I feel fine. It’ll be okay. I know a 90-year-old man who smokes and never exercises. I’ll be fine.”
Some people might call this optimism, but in the absence of supportive information, it would better be called fatal optimism.
Fatal Optimism with Children
We do this with our children every day:
- A three-year-old child whines endlessly, and we hate it, but we also dismiss it, saying, “Oh, that’s just what happens at this age.” And then we give them what they want. The whining is over, and we hope that somehow—magically—the whining will stop long term. But it doesn’t. It gets worse, and affects the child in school, in future relationships, and in their careers. We seriously harm them simply by being optimistic that things will “work out.” Fatal optimism.
- Two children argue and fight with each other. We say nothing, hoping that it’s a “phase” and will work itself out. But each time they fight, they feel the hit of power that comes from conflict. They fail to learn how to genuinely work out differences, and this disability stays with them for life. Fatal optimism on our part.
Sound familiar? I see this in parents every day, all day, as they fail to accurately see the innumerable signs that their children do NOT feel loved, and that they are not loving or responsible. But because the world isn’t yet crashing down on the parents’ heads, they just keep believing that they can continue to ignore the signs.
Over and over we parents see and hear tones of voice, facial expressions, behaviors, attitudes, irritation, withdrawal, addictions, and more, and yet we do nothing definitive about these serious signs, hoping that “it will be all right.”
This fatal optimism leads us to do nothing, so the problems multiply, and the day comes when helping our children becomes nearly impossible.
We can’t afford to keep doing nothing—or the same ineffective things—while our children suffer. We cannot afford to be optimistic for no reason.
We cannot afford fatal optimism.
