Category Archives: Optimism

Learned Optimism

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Martin E. Seligman is one of the fathers of the positive psychology movement. His twenty-year-old book, Learned Optimism: How to Change your Mind and your Life, builds on his research on learned helplessness and depression. Learned helplessness, as you probably know, is when individuals internalize that their actions have no effect on their environment and give up trying, even in post-learning situations where their actions would indeed be effectual. Learned Optimism explores how the way that we frame our self-talk around successes and failures determines either our optimism, leading to success, or our pessimism, leading to learned helplessness.

Seligman says there are three elements to one’s explanatory style around life’s highs and lows: permanence (how long causes are believed to last), pervasiveness (how context-specific the causes are believed to be), and personalization (how internal to the individual the causes are believed to be). Optimistic people explain positive experiences in terms of permanent, pervasive, and internal causes, and negative experiences in terms of transient, specific, external causes. In other words, good things happen because of the optimist’s enduring good traits which manifest themselves in most situations, while bad things happen due to very specific, temporary accidents. Pessimists explain events in the opposite way: bad things happen because of their enduring and pervasive bad personal qualities, while good things are specific, temporary, external flukes.

The asymmetry here is interesting, and neither of those two explanatory-style stereotypes seems like something I want to aspire to. Perhaps that’s related to my scoring optimistically when explaining bad events and pessimistically when explaining good ones. In fact, I wonder whether pondering the impermanence of all things and the traps of the ego doesn’t predispose one toward explaining all events this way, as due to accidental, temporary, external causes….

Seligman notes that while optimism is generally the preferable mindset in terms of getting individuals to dream big, act on their dreams, and get over failures, pessimists have a more accurate grasp of reality, and may thus have the more useful mindset for mission-critical applications like surgery, flying airplanes, and accounting. He notes, however, that we can choose to be flexible in employing optimism when it would be useful. His technique for doing this is based on the ABCDE acronym for reframing failures optimistically (interestingly, he does not reframe successes optimistically):

  • Adversity: Some external bad event happens.
  • Beliefs: Our explanatory style leads us to believe in certain causes for the adversity.
  • Consequences: Those causes have consequences: how we respond to the adversity.
  • Disputation: However, we can challenge our pessimistic beliefs using techniques such as seeing whether the evidence lines up, whether there are alternative explanations, what the implications of our beliefs are, and whether our beliefs are useful in any way.
  • Energization (!): As a result, we can feel more in control of our response to the situation.

In essence, the book is largely just a motivational build-up to this technique, whose key step, “disputation,” is nothing other than reframing our internal explanations in a fairer and more useful way.

The Mindfulness Solution

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Awakening In the Star Trek universe, Vulcans routinely practice The Disciplines, mental exercises that allow them to live their lives according to cthia, the philosophy of seeing the world dispassionately as it really is. Not surprisingly, there’s a real-life analogue of this fictional concept: mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness is getting more and more mainstream attention in the West these days, and with good reason. In a world where our default mode of operation is racing from one thing to another, where we strive to keep up with our social media lest we be (and be perceived to be) out of the loop, stopping to actually savor where we are is simple yet surprisingly hard recipe for appreciating our life while we’re living it. In the process, by learning to put our egos on hold, we can approach problems more objectively and empathize more easily with our fellow beings.

I’ve been interested in mindfulness for a while now, though it’s only recently that I’ve been “sitting” formally on a regular basis. Part of what made it hard was figuring out exactly what the nuts and bolts of the practice entail, without the mystical trappings that are extraneous and distracting in my secular, rationalist world view. Most of the books I’ve consulted include these metaphysical elements to some degree or another. Two that don’t (and which I’ve mentioned before) are Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are and Henepola Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English. Nonetheless, the first one I found a bit too vague for what I needed, and the second spent a bit too much time for my taste on Buddhist philosophy and terminology.

I now have a new favorite meditation manual, Ronald D. Siegel’s The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems. The first two chapters motivate and introduce mindfulness straightforwardly, noting its historical roots but not unduly burdening the reader with extraneous information. The real value of the book, however, lies in the third and fourth chapters, which contain directions on how to do various concentration and mindfulness meditations. These are the clearest instructions I’ve found yet, presented in a very approachable way. I particularly like the metaphor of the restless mind that will not focus for any length of time as an untrained puppy that you just expect you’ll have to repeatedly and lovingly tug back.

The following two-hundred-plus pages go into details of how particular meditations on certain topics and sensations can be used for rather specific life issues, such as fear, depression, pain, and relationships. These were interesting enough to read through and are a useful reference, complete with worksheets to identify problem areas and write down meditation intentions. They boil down to a common theme: using mindfulness and awareness of the present to ride and observe our unpleasant sensations, noting how they ebb and flow by themselves and in response to external circumstances.

For those serious about exploring meditation, this is the one book I would recommend to get started. I also recommend using a meditation timer to remove the concern of spending more or less time than intended; there are many phone apps that can fill this role, like the one I currently use.

My Social Justice Story

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I was one of a handful of people asked to tell my “social justice story” at the Social Justice Fund Northwest’s annual dinner tonight. These are my prepared remarks.

As with many other people, my awareness of social unfairness began at home. My parents pointed out and lamented the injustices that plague the lives of the poor—both individuals and societies. Coming from Latin America, we were acutely aware of our differences with the First World—which is to say, aware of the widespread impact of American culture, consumerism, and foreign policy. I was to learn much later that my parents had actually been involved in progressive causes earlier, but growing up, I did not experience their angst and concern being translated to action. Instead, there was always this attitude that charity was just throwing money away: a feel-good measure that did nothing to advance the systemic change needed to solve the root problems. That stance certainly has some merit (“teach a man to fish” and all that), but it can all too easily become an excuse for inaction and helplessness.

As I grew up and my newspaper reading shifted from the comic pages to the front pages to the editorial pages, my sense of urgency around social issues grew. What also changed is that I finally had money of my own: first my grad school stipend, and then a real, honest-to-goodness salary. I now had much more motivation and many more resources than I had ever had before, but I was still confused as to the best means to effect change. I gingerly became an online member of one or two national progressive groups (they were pursuing systemic change!). I soon became inundated with solicitations from many more. Most seemed worthy, and I had money, so I sent fifty dollars here, fifty dollars there, fifty dollars everywhere, and got a walletful of membership cards. But was spreading my money around really effective? Was there a way to become more directly involved in creating change without either giving up my day job or throwing money at the problem as though it were somebody else’s job to fix?

And then 2000 happened. The suspense and non-resolution that followed that election felt to me like the beginning of a nightmare, one in which (I’m ashamed to admit) I disengaged in despair for eight painful years. I knew that disengaging was not helping anyone, but watching the social and political discourse was just too painful, when all I could do—all I knew how to do—was wring my hands at my own powerlessness to make the world right.

But soon enough, I wasn’t alone anymore. I eventually dated and married Knox. One of the many remarkable things about him is how centrally he values reaching out to others and building community. He’ll stop to help or chat with a neighbor just because; he’ll organize a community harvest to glean fruit that would otherwise be going to waste; he’ll spend much time helping folks throughout the country organize Soup Swaps where they can rediscover the fun of cooking and sharing and telling stories. In short, through Knox, I came to understand more viscerally how communities get built from the ground up based on individual interactions. At the same time, I noticed that this community-building was also happening on the national stage, as the left began to coalesce around the Obama campaign. Thanks to what was happening at both the national and very local levels, I came to realize that by fostering community, the isolated helplessness to which I had succumbed could instead become collective progress.

And so this year, at the urging of my friend Jessan, I got involved with the the Next Generation Giving Project run by the Social Justice Fund. I was fascinated by the discussions we had around wealth, class, and privilege—a complex of topics I want to keep exploring. We learned about fund-raising: I wasn’t very successful at that, yet I was still pleasantly surprised at how receptive people were to my pleas. And we evaluated a heck of a lot of applications in a few short weeks. Every night I would grumble at how long that process took, and yet, when I read each application, I would feel guilty about my complaining when it was them doing the hard, amazing, often thankless work down on the ground.

Now, unlike most of the really great SJF members with whom I worked this year, I don’t have a background in social work nor, as you see, in activism. I can’t say “intersectional analysis” without feeling self-conscious. That makes me feel like a bit of an impostor among all of you here tonight. But I know I’m not, because of course this is where my social justice journey has taken me: SJF is working for systemic change, by channeling resources to effective groups while building and sustaining a community working toward a shared vision.

I don’t know yet what form my social activism will take in the future, but I do know that I take to heart the old Jewish saying: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Thank you.

What’s in a marriage?

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We just returned from our first wedding since we ourselves got married a year ago. The groom and bride are pretty awesome people: geeks, fans of the outdoors, interesting and engaged in the world. We were glad to be part of the community witnessing their vows. A highlight for me was the acoustic metaphor of how each one is an interesting tune alone, but the tunes combine and vary to make beautiful music. Just as cool was the groom’s ring: not a ring at all, but a tattoo around the finger, unveiled at the ceremony. This would be just about the only type of tattoo that I would consider having myself!

I found it interesting to reflect on how I feel at other people’s weddings. There’s always happiness, of course, but also a bit of introspection. When I was single, I wondered whether I would find the right man with whom to face life together. When I was dating, I thought about how contented I was and how “maybe, someday….”

Now that I am married, seeing others pledge their vows reinforces the solemnity of my own. Two people freely choosing to be partners in life, to face the obstacles together and celebrate the triumphs, to help each other grow as individuals. A couple asking their community to witness their promises, to hold them accountable, to provide support and validation. Oh, and how the future stretches out before us! What challenges will we face as the calendar turns, what fights and ailments and frustrations! And how many tender moments, how many unexpected gifts, how many adventures and projects!

Being married does not change the work that it takes to be in a relationship: communication, empathy, respect, selflessness. But being married is a constant reminder of a choice freely taken that I will gladly stand by my husband even at his worst, and the reassurance that he will stand by me even at mine.