Reserve optimism for outcomes we can't know or foresee, writes Vaughan Gunson. Photo / Getty Images
When is it okay to be an optimist?
That seems like a dumb question. Of course we should be optimistic. Who wants a bad result, a negative outcome, the shit hitting the fan?
No one.
Optimism is a positive word in the English language. Its opposite, pessimism, has negative connotations.
You can insult someone by calling them a pessimist.
The person receiving this judgment may feel like their entire outlook on life has been questioned.
Saying to someone, "You optimist!", no matter what your tone, still doesn't feel like a criticism of character.
Being optimistic is the sunny side of the street. Being pessimistic is to be sent to the dark, cold shadows.
"Go reflect on your attitude. Come back when you've changed your tune," is the message.
And yet, to go back to the question I asked, it's not always okay to be optimistic.
To be optimistic in some situations is plainly stupid.
You can stand at the top of a seaside cliff looking down on the jagged black rocks below and say to yourself that your chances of surviving the jump are good.
A general understanding of gravity, velocity, the hardness of rocks and the squishiness of the average human body should foreshadow the outcome.
You can't be optimistic about that situation, or pessimistic.
Armed with knowledge, you can only make a rational decision, as opposed to an irrational one.
It seems then that the whole optimism-versus-pessimism thing is nullified by having a few facts.
As much as you can, you don't want to make a decision based on optimism or pessimism.
Covid has, once again, offered us the chance to learn something here.
Countries that have performed best have had leaders who listened to the science, compared with those who didn't.
Remember Trump's "we'll be back to normal" by Easter comment? Optimism or dangerous ignorance?
Our government's response to Covid, a reflection also of the role played by the media and a generally knowledgeable citizen body, has conformed quite closely to the ideal.
We haven't got it all right, but we haven't acted either from optimism or pessimism. The Government, and the educated public that's supported it, has kept a firm eye on the science and the bigger picture.
From an accurate understanding of the risks and trade-offs involved, sound decisions have been made.
Being optimistic shouldn't have anything to do with making decisions at the level of a country.
Kiwibuild was optimistic, as was Phil Twyford, the ex housing minister. That didn't make it happen. An accurate understanding of the facts on the ground was not built into the policy.
We could say that Twyford and the Labour Party were blindly optimistic about Kiwibuild. That is, they didn't really know whether the policy would work.
But really, optimism is always blind.
Knowing the likely outcome of a series of personal or collective actions, taking steps and evaluating how things turn out, changing course if necessary, that's behaving rationally. There's no faith, no belief, no wishful thinking involved.
We should keep our optimism for those things we can't know, where being optimistic might help us achieve the outcome we wish for.
A good example is marriage. Getting married in your 20s, you cannot know if the marriage will last to your 80s, or if, on the whole, it's going to be a happy one.
No matter how thoroughly you've road-tested the relationship leading up to the marriage, in the end you just have to take a leap of faith.
Being optimistic, as friends and family who gather at the wedding should be, will increase your chances of a happy marriage.
Even when presented with a risk calculation, like Labour MP Kiri Allan has with her stage 3 cervical cancer diagnosis, she cannot know the outcome of the treatment on her body.
For Allan and her close supporters, being optimistic will surely help. That's not a situation where you want your friends and family to be pessimistic.
For those things that can be known, we should avoid a tendency to be either optimistic or pessimistic, particularly if it's a cover for lazy thinking. We should delve deeper into the facts. How risky, for instance, is it really to get a Covid jab?
Distinguishing between what can and can't be known is a skill to develop. Maybe that's part of what we call wisdom. Something — you would hope — we gain as we get older.
(Teenagers, from experience, can succumb too easily to the pitfalls of misplaced optimism and unnecessary pessimism).
A useful life motto could go something like this: "For what can be known, neither a pessimist nor an optimist will I be."
Reserve optimism for outcomes we can't know or foresee. A hope and prayer begin where knowledge ends.