Strategic Optimism

It seems to me that the approach most conducive to progress on the path, and the most skilful way of dealing with feelings of fear is that of strategic optimism. When people ask me how I personally deal with challenging dilemmas, I often tell them that I am a strategic optimist.

Of course, naive optimism is very dangerous, as is habitual pessimism. Both these perspectives blind us to a great many possibilities. But when our decision to intentionally develop an optimistic attitude is informed by mindfulness, sense restraint and skilful reflection, it is neither naive nor dangerous.

We can chose to adopt such an approach out of a desire to take full responsibility for our actions of body, speech and mind, so as to do more than merely react out of conditioned preference. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we don’t know that everything is getting worse, any more than we know that everything is getting better.

But what we can observe is how being caught in negative mind-states affects the way things unfold and, conversely, how cultivating wholesome mind-states can have a positive influence. It doesn’t take a lot of study to see that being positively disposed towards the results of our efforts brings beneficial results.

I realize that, to some, speaking this way will sound idealistic, but I am not talking about how things should be, but about how things are. How are we relating to reality moment by moment? Are we interested in what works, what helps, or are we merely caught in negative thinking and worry about what could happen in the future?

This reflection by Ajahn Munindo is from the booklet, Sanity in the Midst of Uncertainty, (pdf) pp.6-7.