But we are all seekers. We all want to know why….a story without end, as we continue to explore our humanity in the eternal Why. And we see how we have come from seeking meaning to finding meaning in the seeking. | ||
| --Historian Daniel J. Boorstin | ||
At a previously obscure safety supply company in Long Island City across from Manhattan, New Yorkers lined up in pursuit of safety after 9-11. They “besieged” the supplier (as reported by a New Yorker magazine reporter), selecting and buying gloves, suits for chemical spills, respirators, and gas masks. At one extreme of anxiety, a woman customer asked, “Do you have masks for dogs?” At the other extreme—life-as-usual—the warehouse manager dismissed an obvious question about whether the company's employees had safety gear themselves. “Of course not. You can't live your life worrying about that sort of thing.”
After 9-11, Americans shaped their responses to the threat of terror, mostly within these two extremes of doing something (almost anything) and of resigning themselves to what happens. Each of us is practicing real-life epistemology, identifying the reality that is out there, which exists whether or not we like it, know it, or acknowledge it. We normally live—more unconsciously than consciously—according to what we have decided is the world around us, including the odds-on risks and how much risk we can tolerate. One person's fear of flying is another person's routine commuter flight. For some people, an elevator ride is a convenient alternative to the stairs; for others, it's a frightening trip in a claustrophobic space. Some people fear open spaces; others fear closed places. Phobias of all kinds and the fears they trigger are common knowledge and painful experiences. What is new are the expanded ranks of people worrying about risks they once dismissed as far-fetched and the growing number of things to worry about, phobias aside. The boundaries between normal and neurotic, between far-fetched fears and sensible precautions, have changed dramatically. We are revising our ways of thinking about the world around us.
In making us all practicing epistemologists, the war on terrorism makes us all odds makers who decide what is acceptable risk (driving at 70 miles an hour), what is a far-fetched risk (driving to the supermarket), what risks to avoid (white-water rafting, rappelling off a mountainside). “What if?” thinking has become a national pastime. What could be next, what can we guard against, as individuals and as a nation? Our answers are not in a steady state, depending on whether we worked near the Twin Towers, knew someone who did, had planned to attend a client meeting in one of the upper floors, how much TV coverage we watch, and the latest terrorist incident/threat/warning. Or whether we are an American Airlines pilot responsible for a planeload of passengers and skeptical of the credentials belonging to an Arab-American passenger who is a member of the President's personal security detail. After questioning by the pilot, airline officials, and airport police, the agent was denied passage, even though he had offered to have the Secret Service confirm his identity. After 9-11, the incident is believable, rather than bizarre, as the dividing line between the improbable and possible tilts toward more, rather than less caution.
Terrorism at our doorstep forces each of us to confront the realities of the danger behind threats and terrorist intentions—to our country, our city or town, our neighborhood, our home, ourselves, others. The more threatened that we feel, the more likely it is that we prefer to be “safe rather than sorry.” Many of us go further, doing something, almost anything, even when we realize it offers little protection. Let us not discount psychological comfort. It feels “real.” Like the woman at the safety supply company who spent $1,109.13 on safety equipment, even though she doubted its efficacy or that it would be used. “I just want to feel like I did whatever I could to protect my family.”
The many-sided, multidirectional threats of terrorism force Americans to weigh the odds and rethink their attitude to dangers they may face. For one thing, it depends on how we calculate the odds and what odds are acceptable when we weigh risk against degree of probability, danger against the need to go on with our lives, the peril against the price to be paid if the law of averages catches up with us. For each of us, the threshold of defensive behavior and initiatives is different, somewhere at and between the extremes of nervous New Yorkers shopping or ignoring safety equipment. Depending on how suspicious or sensitive we are, we risk more or less embarrassment, more or less adverse reactions if we disrupt the people around us in pursuit of safety. Some of us will hesitate, others speak up to demand to disembark just after boarding a jumbo jet and noticing a “suspicious” person on board. What about reporting to the FBI that “Arabic-looking” visitors are coming and going to a neighbor's house? What we think and how we identify danger are variable reactions, no doubt reaching back to parental influence and childhood experiences, even to how tall or short, thin or stout we are, even to our birth order.
Socrates would have us start our thinking process within ourselves, in line with the bedrock Delphic advice, know thyself. In 21st-century America, we propose starting with a close look at the outside world. To get anywhere near our inner world, we need to clear a path through the avalanche of distractions and daily duties that constitute lives dominated by “busyness.” We need to recover from a day of overwork (a common complaint) and withstand the assault on our senses and competition for our attention from family, friends, the media, the mail, the phone, the community, the pile of bills. We can, of course, turn off the TV, but give all the many channels credit. They know how to get our attention and to keep us tuned in. They know how to make events into daily dramas, to mix news and entertainment into both an enlightening and distracting experience. They know that violence, the bizarre, the shocking, the sensational, and the scandalous draw audiences. Just look at circulation and ratings. In the final analysis, they give us what we want.
The media mentality is illustrated by the reaction of a high-powered TV news director when a magazine writer once asked to observe and describe the daily production of his market-leading six o'clock show. He refused the attention, however ego-nourishing, and for good reason. Out of context, the rules of competitive journalism can seem appalling: The more casualties, the better; the more footage of blood and gore, the better the story for the top of the show; the “worse” the news, the “better.” The news director did not want to go public with news judgment—discussions of the story lineup and decisions on news value. His reporters, writers, and producers were not cold-blooded and calloused. They were chasing audience. It's their job.
On our end as audience, life in a news and information-saturated society takes effort if we want to avoid the coach potato stereotype. We cannot leave it to the stream of media to keep things in perspective. They will give us what we want and demand (as we demonstrate by the newspapers and magazines each of us read, the TV we watch, the movies we go to see or rent). In the final analysis, making sense of news and information is up to us. We must withstand invasions on our emotions by the media vying for and getting our attention and by their passion for celebrities (who basically, as noted by historian Daniel Boorstin, are famous for being famous). It can even damage our health to pay too much attention to what's happening in an increasingly dangerous world, as therapists found in the wake of 9-11 and prescribed tranquilizers. Family doctors have had the same experience, such as the practitioner who shakes his head in dismay when describing the case of a hale and hearty 80-year-old who precipitously went downhill as TV watching began to do him in. He could not turn off the upsetting and disturbing TV coverage of Ground Zero. He was tied to the set as though it were a life-support system, but it was quite the opposite.
In trying to reach inside ourselves and to focus on what really matters for us as individuals living our lives and as citizens participating in our society, we have an accumulation of clutter to clear away or at least cope with. On the way to an examined life, we must take control of our lives amidst the litter. It is not only a matter of “finding the time.” It is a matter of paying attention—of living, feeling, and responding within the moment and of coming into contact with our real selves. We have to scrape away the barnacles of busy lives and the distractions of a consumer society. The effort is not limited to overworked executives and managers, whose hands are fuller than ever and who are in danger of burning out. Americans live busy lives in a busy country. Our children are well trained for a future as viewers and consumers. They qualify as the world's busiest, most categorized, most stimulated youngsters, targets of the best marketing efforts money can buy. Yes, broad brush strokes run the risk of caricature, but they do paint a recognizable backdrop to mindsets shaken up by terror.
A time of uncertainty puts ingrained attitudes on the spot in confronting a new normalcy. In reaching for equilibrium, we must think twice about our attitudes and enter consciously (and uncomfortably) into a personal campaign of adjustment and rethinking. Of course, change does signal opportunities, but only with eyes wide open to the impact of what is happening. Compared with yesterday, what is today really like? Back to back, today and yesterday, how different are our lives, our hopes, our dreams? How different are our feelings? How do we change our way of thinking to deal with the changes we are forced to pay attention to? How do we tune into changes that are coming on strong while we never notice? The warning is familiar but still relevant: watch out for “future shock.”
While reminders about a changing world are not new, close-to-home terrorism forces us to pay more attention than before. During the counter-cultural outburst of the 1960s, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer made a comment that needs no updating and deserves a ready nod of acknowledgment: “One thing that is new is the prevalence of newness, the changing scale and scope of change itself, so that the world alters as we walk in it.” Terrorism is a blood-soaked finger pointing toward change as a basic component of our human condition, with its uncompromising rule of life and death. As the philosopher Heraclitus reminded ancient Greeks in his historic admonition, we “cannot step twice into the same river.” It's a dangerous mistake to think we can.
Terrorists, as they intended, shattered our comforting view that while the river may be moving and changing, we are still here, we stand our ground, we are safe. It would be far-fetched to say that 9-11 on its own had an immediate, long-lasting, permanent impact. America did not completely change one traumatic Tuesday morning. We Americans were forced to pay attention to realities that were already changing the world, our world. Our portfolio of attitudes was put under serious pressure by our immediate reactions and sense of shock. In a time of adjustment, we can no longer hope to go home again to pre-9-11 comfort levels.
Whether it is job security, physical health, or safe streets, we are surrounded by ongoing threats that do not go away by denying their existence. We are hostages to fortune, though the American story has so many happy endings that it is easy to feel that we are immune to misfortune, even able to fight wars with hardly any casualties, and can count on having it better from one generation to the next. Up, up, and away feels great—until the bubble bursts. So we recommend against avoidance and urge factoring in the risk built into the human condition and the new normalcy, even in America.
Avoidance, aided, abetted, and facilitated by the distractions all around us, makes it possible to ignore changes and the emergence of new realities. There is nothing new about denial as a coping mechanism. Busyness—on the job, at play, with hobbies, in social activity, in the pursuit of pleasure—keeps us distracted, and the more we are immersed, the better we may even feel, until called to attention. Legal and illegal use of drugs reaches for better living through chemistry. Similar and healthy results are provided by a workout at the gym. Perspiration and anxiety do not cohabit. Once endorphin kicks in, we feel better, but only for the time being. Removing symptoms interrupts but does not remove anxiety. Enter terrorism, the dread reminder—the less realistic we have been, the greater the shock.
Rather than outright avoidance, it can make sense to take control of avoidance by locating where we stand on risk. What is the degree of risk that faces us? What can we realistically do to protect ourselves and others? What can we expect, and what should we demand from our local and national leadership? What responsibilities do we have as concerned individuals, citizens, parents, friends, neighbors, colleagues?
In responding to such issues, we recommend Blaise Pascal's celebrated “wager.” The proposition of the 17th-century French philosopher focuses on belief in God, but can extend to all situations where people face uncertainty, where answers to serious questions are not unequivocal, where we are in the seeking, rather than finding mode. Pascal approached belief in God as a gamble on whether God exists. If so, then a believer can look forward to eternal life, while atheists can be viewed as hell-bound. So why not bet on God's existence? While we live, we have the comfort of that belief and the prospect of reward in the afterlife. If we lose the bet by believing, we lose nothing. If we win, we win big.
With adjustments (and without detouring into a theoretical discussion), we propose thinking of the Pascal wager as a useful way to view terrorism and the myriad threats that we can think of and those we cannot. We can live assuming that “it won't happen to me,” while taking precautions that feel right. Specifically:
Demand that those in power do everything constitutional and necessary to protect us. From Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, we can use the tried-and-tested methods of applying political pressure to local, state, and federal government in demanding responsible policies and actions.
Stay informed, starting with the precautions recommended by official government agencies and supplemented by watchdog groups of experts.
Avoid overreacting to individual episodes. The same media that do so well in keeping us up to date are event-driven. As noted, the latest and most dramatic are what journalists in all media live by. Their pursuit of headlines and of air time can distort our understanding of what is really important and misdirect our precautions against risks. Sometimes the risk is greater, sometimes less than it seems. Beware of headlines, which can function the way pickpockets do—attracting attention and distracting us while grabbing our wallet.
Take a positive attitude. Count on the law of averages to be in our favor, while taking into account what the government and we as individuals can do. That's in line with President Bush's urging that we go on with our lives. Americans showed every sign of getting his message. Six weeks after 9-11, a Gallup poll found that the percentage of Americans describing their mood as “good” had dropped by only five percentage points, compared with the previous January. Two-thirds were not “worried” about anthrax and thought there was no good reason to be afraid of terrorist threats.
Take a second look at our personal way of life and how we nourish body and mind. Here is where our information-rich environment can be a useful ally, replete with sound advice and guidance. From the Internet to newsletters, from magazine cover stories to specialized cable TV channels, there is a healthy diet of information and guidance available to all of us. It arrives from many directions, as in a thoughtful newsletter sent to readers of the University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter. Referring to the post-9-11 “sense of vulnerability,” Dr. John Swartzberg suggests “strategies to promote resiliency.” His worthwhile reminders include following your regular routine and sticking to a healthy diet, remembering to turn off the TV occasionally, and trying to keep things in perspective. He reminds us that we need to give ourselves a breather, a change of pace, a walk in the woods, get-togethers with friends. He cites the need for “even a few laughs,” something that he points out as “much needed these days.” For good measure, he adds an optimistic reminder: “Also, don't forget that we Americans are a resourceful, durable and resilient people. We not only survived the horrors of World War II, but experienced unprecedented prosperity during the half century that followed.”
Make adjustments that make sense, based on the best understanding of risk and our own risk tolerance. Often, inconvenience is more than risk as the factor that changes our behavior. It makes sense to take into account the difference between the two. The greater the security, the greater the inconvenience, and the more cooperation we must commit ourselves to providing.
What New York Senator Charles E. Schumer said about learning from 9-11 applies to us as individuals, as well as the government: “We live in a new world and everything has to be recalibrated.” Depending on where we stand on the optimism/pessimism continuum, “recalibration” will vary for all of us as individuals. In line with our discussion of Pascal's gamble, we are partial to an optimistic outlook. It not only feels better but appears more realistic, in view of not only the long odds against terrorism striking us directly, but also of our tremendous national assets, global support, and determination to prevail.
Recalibration of how uncertainty impacts our lives is an individual and rough calculation to make in conjunction with all the other people in our lives and in terms of responsibilities and goals. Whatever the calculation, we must face the fact that the greater our vulnerability (real or perceived), the less control we have or can take over at least some of our lives. We face trade-off situations between what we want to do and what we can do in changed circumstances, between what we must do and what must be done to make it possible, between what we add to our activities and what we subtract. As part of making any plans, how much should security figure in? This involves what we do, what others do, what those in charge of security require. Our portfolio of time, energy, and effort needs to be reexamined and changed accordingly. Here, for example, is how rethinking can affect planning, arranging and conducting activities.
Our control over time and timing is under pressure. Standard security procedures and unexpected disruptions can interfere with or disrupt any of our activities. We cannot be as certain as in the past of timetables, schedules, and commitments. In conducting personal and company business, how much time will it take? How do new rules and procedures complicate matters?
In a country dependent on air travel, a trip to the nearest airport illustrates the changed travel picture. How much extra time do we need to allow for check-in? What are the prospects for extra delays from security false alarms and from tie-ups in other airports? What am I carrying on my person or in my luggage that will raise an alarm? How much more time will it take to make a trip, whether by car, bus, train, or plane? What happens in any form of travel, even going downtown, if security needs disrupt normal activities? Americans will hesitate leaving home without a cell phone (already a staple item for people of all ages). Whether traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or foreign destinations, which airline should we take, which countries and airports have optimum and efficient security, which have the best track records for security, the most efficiency?
Given the priority on security, what are the possible disruptions in public services, ranging from water, gas, and electricity to calls for emergency assistance? What goods and services will unexpectedly face shortages? If and when terrorist attacks occur or are threatened, what disruptions will result? If we need vaccines or other health supplies, will they be readily available when needed? Should we stock up on bottled water, flashlights, canned food? If we cannot get home from work or need to stay out overnight, what backup arrangements are called for?
Since “time is money” in an advanced economy, delay is costly, disruption potentially disastrous. Can we count on other businesses that we work with to come through? Are they at risk to terror, to the vagaries of the marketplace? Inside our companies, can we count on out-of-town participants to make it to meetings? How do we adjust to no-shows? When and where are the best venues for major meetings? Should we even hold a general meeting? What contingency planning is called for in case of a disaster? What logistics are involved? What are the costs?
Beyond such practical issues, which we can accommodate at a price in time, money, and effort, what about the fundamental issue of know thyself? How do we approach life as individuals, define our place in the world, ponder who we are and what we want to be? This means thinking about our ways of thinking, a process in which we can benefit from all the help we can get. Any such confrontation can have an uncomfortable undercurrent: What am I becoming? Is this what I want to become? What is my life all about? How do I feel about myself, really feel?
Two enlightening person-to-person conversations illustrate what is involved in this process—one with a widely acclaimed voice of reason and humanism from the last century, the other with a psychologist who has a national following for her work in addressing the mind/body connection. Highlights of the conversations provide reminders and insights that can serve us all in renewing our ways of thinking. First, there is Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., president of Mind/Body Health Sciences in Boulder, Colorado, who draws on her work as scientist, therapist, and consultant. Here is her view of the optimism/pessimism divide:
Any shocking event reveals our thinking, whether we're going to be resilient and transformed by difficulty, whether we think like an optimist or a pessimist. It shows in how we think when something rocks our world. There are people who feel like life is over and that things will never be the same, people who are less likely to see possible opportunities. Then you have another group of people who say it's difficult, it's terrible. I have grief, I have sadness, I have fear. I also see that it opens up totally new ways of thinking and possibly new ways of reprioritizing my life. Now that I recognize that life is inherently uncertain, I can see what life really means to me. I can live more in the moment. I can see how I can be of better service to the world. So the larger question is how one responds during a dark night of the soul. In a certain way, suffering is a lesson because it sloughs complacency. It would be safe to say what's most important to human beings would be finding that center of peace and compassion within ourselves and the wisdom of creativity so that we live a life in service to others.
Because Borysenko traveled extensively during the weeks after 9-11 (some 50 different flights), she is in an unusual position to gauge the immediate responses of Americans coast to coast. Her findings were not unexpected.
Underlying grief and uncertainty… . It took the slightest reminder for people to burst into tears. They share their fears for the future, certainly their fears for their children. At the same time, people have been mobilized in a big response—if not now, when; if not you, who?
It's very clear that some people are having trouble coping. One of the other things, besides optimism/pessimism, is the basic stress levels in their lives. If someone is already at the edge of what they can bear, it doesn't take a whole lot to push them over the edge. The more general stress we take out of our lives, the better are our coping reserves for dealing with a truly extraordinary challenge like 9-11.
Borysenko argues convincingly that America's “coping reserves” were already low before 9-11. She points to an “anxious and worried culture” and describes Americans as a nation that has “never been wealthier—or more miserable.” Americans, she adds, are struggling to achieve what Borysenko calls the “inner peace that makes life worth living.” While the struggle is waged by Americans as individuals, cumulatively, the effort is massive, as exemplified by spending on self-help books alone, which reached $563 million in the year 2000. Sales of such books and the Bible surged after 9-11, a sure sign of greater do-it-yourself efforts to achieve mental balance and a sense of well-being. Cold, hard industry data supports Borysenko's dispiriting reminder about our culture after a decade of soaring prosperity:
About one in three Americans is sleep deprived, with complaints of exhaustion and trouble holding things together.
Visits to doctors' offices for anxiety increased by 31 percent between 1990 and 1997; visits for panic disorder more than doubled.
More than one in five Americans is depressed or has chronic “low mood.”
70 to 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians is attributed to stress.
This unforgiving data tracks the efforts of Americans to come to terms with who we are as we think about ourselves and the world we live in. As someone widely praised for her work in helping others with stress, spirituality, and the mind/body connection, Borysenko speaks to the challenge of coping with the post-9-11 world. Hers is a voice of optimism tempered by realism:
From the viewpoint of our material and physical safety, there is a very, very, very great threat. From a totally different point of view, I would say the opportunity has never been greater to grow as human beings, to grow in terms of our connection with one another, in our understanding of what's important in life, in our commitment to service and to our relationship with God. I would say that my greatest sustenance and the place where I find God most evident is in the love that I share with a very wise circle of friends. Then, of course, I find quite a lot of sustenance in prayer and meditation, in my dogs that I love and in beauty, in nature, in things that grow.
A flashback to a memorable conversation taped with the influential 20th-century voice of humanism, the late Erich Fromm, recalls the distinction he made between the “having” mode, centered around things and property, and the “being” mode, which is centered around persons. His advice is to look at ourselves: “Analyze your own having tendencies—having prestige, possessions, one's jealousy, one's greed. Those tendencies are usually unconscious and need analyzing.” He recommended an hour every morning in self-analysis and meditation. While we may not find the suggestion of a daily 60 minutes feasible or realistic, Fromm was clearly pointing in the direction of knowing ourselves in the Biblical tradition of looking beyond the material and reaching for the spiritual.
Literally a child of his century—born in 1900—Fromm influenced generations of thoughtful Americans with his writing on love, hope, psychoanalysis, and human nature. For him, the difference that mattered was not between believers and unbelievers but between those who cared about religious questions and those who didn't. While his background and upbringing undoubtedly shaped him, it never defined him. A practicing Orthodox Jew (until age 26), he characterized himself as a non-theist. He was a renowned psychoanalyst, author, and teacher. Two of his books became landmarks on humanism: The Art of Loving and The Revolution of Hope. His outlook, as described in a memorable meeting with one of this book's authors, spoke to life in any time of uncertainty, even if “the chances for our survival are very, very small.” (At the time, Fromm said it was “maybe five percent, two percent.”)
When asked whether he was a pessimist or optimist, Fromm rejected either label. What emerges is a two-sided self-image of someone who was “a peculiar mixture of pessimist and optimist.” He characterized himself “as a man who has a deep faith in love.” At the age of 76 (four years before his death), he was clearly a man who would never give up, who faced up to what he identified as the human condition—part of nature and subject to its laws, but also transcending it by virtue of self-awareness and reason. For him, what counted was loving, nonexploitive effort on behalf of personal well-being, humanist that he was. The odds, as pessimistic as he saw them, never overcame an abiding commitment never to give up.
As long as there is life I cannot give up hope. As long as one could not prove that there is no way of hope, as long as that is the case, I shall have faith in life. That's not a matter of computers and of calculations. It's a deep faith in life and I have written about some factors which support somewhat this rationally. But I separate very definitely my realistic reasoning in which my emotions are not participating from my feeling which says everything must be done as long as there is a possibility. And the two don't conflict with each other because as long as there is a possibility, even a small one, then everything must be done to save life.
Like Fromm, Borysenko speaks to a common denominator of love and of reaching out for it, working at it. They are two among the many thought leaders concerned about “religious questions,” viewed in the broadest sense. Whatever differences in what they believe, they share the tradition of know thyself and a have a common starting point— inside our individual selves.
Borysenko: “I do think that any tragedy like this has to make you look inward to your most deeply held values and ask, What am I doing here?” What's the definition of a life well-lived or finding the definition of success? For me, what it's come down to after all these years is that the definition is to give and receive love, to reflect our beautiful world with gratitude back to the Creator. When that thing (9-11) happens, the good fallout is that everywhere you travel, people talk to strangers, there is a sense of wanting to be tied to other people. I've never felt more community, more sense of service, of love, of togetherness everywhere. These are really spiritual values and experiences they're talking about. That's always been the case. Disaster tends to bring out these things that seem important to people.”
Fromm: “The constant development of love and non-hate is the only way to mental health. There is none other. Whether this is phrased in Christian theological terms or not, that is a very secondary question to me. What matters to me is the kind of life a person leads or wants to lead or struggles to lead, what he or she really considers sin. I believe mental health can only be reached in this way. People who lose their souls, who are scattered, who chase after the manifoldness of things with the drives that come from the manifoldness of their desires are people who lose themselves. They have no center, no selves. They necessarily have to build their security on greed, on all the things that make people unhappy.”
Borysenko: “From the point of view of our material and physical safety, there is a very, very great threat. From a totally different point of view, the opportunities have never been greater to grow as human beings, to grow in terms of our connections with one another, to understand what's important in life, to grow in our relationship with God.”
Thinking in terms of personal renewal brings us face to face with a continuum of inner feeling and outlook. On the dark side, are we caught up in depression and anxiety? Or are we on the bright side, looking forward to the day, feeling the joy of living? We propose taking a cue from an illuminating approach set forth by the perceptive psychologist and author, Lawrence LeShan. In his book Alternative Realities (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977), he points to the “central idea” that “we human beings invent reality as much as we discover it,” and that “if this is comprehended, we have a wide choice as to how we invent it and therefore, what sort of world we live in.”
Whether we call the continuum that we invent/discover as pessimism to optimism or dark side to bright side, we know the differences when we see them. Based on common sense and 9-11 observations, here is our description:
Pessimists, who proverbially see the glass as half empty, look mainly for what's wrong, expect the worst, come up with What If? formulations which lead to negative expectations. They are most comfortable finding what's wrong, so that's where they look first in seeking what won't and can't work. They tend to mistrust others and downplay the prospects of positive results. Typical responses: “It hasn't worked in the past.” “What makes you think anything's going to change?” They take a narrow view of possibilities and would rather not try. They magnify setbacks, minimize positive results. They are quick to criticize, slow to praise. They get up each day on the wrong side of the bed.
Optimists, seeing the glass as half-filled, look mainly for what's right, expect the best, come up with What If? formulations which lead to positive expectations. They are most comfortable seeing what's right, so that's where they look first in seeking what will and can work. Typical responses: “What have we done in the past that's worked?” “What do we have going for us?” “What can I do?” They take the widest view of possibilities, open to answers from any and all directions. They are ready to try anything. They minimize any setbacks, magnify positive results. They are quick to praise, slow to criticize. They get up each day on the right side of the bed.
Over the years, watching young men and women plan and begin careers, observing colleagues, comparing those who do well with their lives with those who don't, we can safely stand behind an upbeat generalization: Optimists have a far better winning record than do pessimists. They expect positive things and achieve them more often than pessimists. They also have more energy to devote to their activities, fueled by the expectation that what they do will make a difference. Certainly, they smile more often and are more appealing to have around. So as a result, we “reward” them. We are more likely to support their efforts, to see them as top performers, to join forces with them. One undeniable sign is in the workplace, where there is no doubt that optimists make the best sellers of goods and services, as well as their own abilities. This is confirmed in the world of teaming, from the schoolyard to the boardroom, where optimists are the teammates of choice.
Particularly important, optimists feel as though they are in charge of their lives and, therefore, feel better about themselves and the world. There are no secrets to joining their ranks. We can begin by listening to sound advice all around us and by taking charge of our own thinking and feeling. What Fromm and Borysenko advise, from one generation to another, from one century to the next, never becomes obsolete if, as we believe, human nature and the human condition basically never change. Of course, the mechanics of living, thanks to technology, change dramatically, but not the basic issues of finding our place in the world and making a life.
At a time like this, tried-and-true reminders are worth repeating:
Take responsibility for our inner lives by paying attention to the thoughts and feelings that shape our outlook.
Work on balancing our personal/family/work/play lives.
Activate the age-old concept of the Sabbath/Sunday, thereby setting apart time that is devoted to ourselves. No work. No chores. No shopping. Full timeouts, regularly.
Get in close touch with other people and listen to what they have to say.
Help others. Those who do so also help themselves.
Bring variety into life with exploratory reading, a new hobby or interest, hearing a lecture, taking a course, learning a new skill, taking up painting, learning to play an instrument.
Enjoy ourselves in positive and enriching ways. To each his or her own version.
Take care of both body and soul and never stop paying attention to what that means.
We are on the side of those who advise taking charge of our lives and ourselves, and we argue that doing so moves us into the ranks of optimists, who are by definition proactive, rather than reactive. Pessimists are the opposite. They are primarily reactive, taking action as a last resort, typically when it is too late to make a difference.
In renewing our way of thinking, one dimension deserves particular attention: a mindset of looking to the future. A hallmark of the American psyche and of optimists in general, the power of this orientation was confirmed in studies of Nazi concentration camp survivors. Researchers found in case after case the will to live, determination to overcome immediate problems and hardships, and something else. Survivors tended to look to the future. They devoted considerable mental energy to thinking about what they would do after the horrible chapter of their lives in a concentration camp. One man thought about writing a book on history, another about teaching music, and so it went, each with his or her own particular vision. The details of a future vision did not matter. What mattered was having a vision.
This combination of faith and hope is a basic coping technique in tough times. It recalls the survivor mentality of American POWs from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, who cited the value of looking to the future. It places the present in perspective and gives hope its best chance. The real you, the important you, the you singled out by Borysenko and Fromm cannot be touched by the enemy. It is inside us. We are in charge of our mind, our attitudes, and our spirit. This realization is an essential part of coping with the stress and hardship of the new normalcy. It addresses the reality that in life there are good and bad times, and what counts is how we face up to both. The English poet William Blake crystallized this fact of life with a rhymed reminder, “Man was made for Joy & Woe/And when this we rightly know/Thro(ugh) the World we safely go.”
In these tough times, when we are in an economic recession on top of fighting a war against terrorism, we can draw on the strength of the national psyche, as well as our own psychological resources. Looking to the future does not mean ignoring today's realities and escaping into future dreams; it means mixing attitude and action with sound priorities. In a country like ours, realistic optimism enshrines confidence in a better tomorrow that all Americans work for. In turning toward the bright side, we focus our thoughts and feelings on positives in the life at hand, on what the positives mean to us, and what we can mean to others. With such a focus, we celebrate the day as it begins and honor the day that was. It is part of finding our way— in life and at work—as we pursue opportunities and personal rewards beyond the reach of terrorism. It is a quintessentially American response in a nation whose history is a parable of incorrigible optimism. It is a matter of finding our way at work, the arena in which we spend most of our time and energy.