The law of pragmatic optimism

On Rational Moodiness

Everyone’s life has a bit of good and a bit of bad in it. If your life is like many others, the good far outweighs the bad. Sure, every once in a while a back goes out, the car needs repairs, or the boss really is a jerk. However, you have to put things in perspective. Some people really do have it bad—their health is failing, some personal or professional disaster has befallen them, or life just seems to have it out for them. Yet, people whose lives are good still complain all the time, and people who have a “right” to complain are often pretty happy dogs. 

Now, imagine that an impossibly objective observer was able to measure what proportion of things happening to you and around you were really “bad”, compared to being OK or pretty good. The fraction of your life that is objectively bad is known as the complaint limit.  

The Law of Pragmatic Optimism states that you are not allowed to complain and be generally negative, pessimistic, and grumpy about things any fraction of time greater than the complaint limit.

So, if life objectively sucks right now, go ahead and complain. Things might get better if you can manage to complain less than the complaint limit, but go ahead and let it hang out if you feel the need to. The others of you--suck it up. You have no right to be Ms. or Mr. Negative. If you follow this Law, you will at least be giving the heavens their fair share of gratitude for what they’re dealing you. Rational Karma.

In my own life, I have about 98.5 percent good stuff happen to me moment by moment in the day. I interact with wonderful people, I've got an incredible wife, my kids really are cool, the Phoenix Suns are in the playoffs, and there’s still one more season of the Sopranos. So I’m only allowed to be negative 100 minus 98.5, or 1.5 percent of the time, or about 20 minutes a day. I can’t help but be a happy guy!

Comments

[Patrick Dooley]

Because many people do not deal with truly bad events on a regular basis, it is easy for them to adopt a false sense that ordinary circumstances or events are somehow bad. Having worked as a paramedic, I have witnessed 20-year-olds dying of cancer, a 6-year-old in need of a liver, scores of people in nursing homes who don't know who or where they are, etc. etc. This allows me to compare and see that things likd the car breaking down, a leak in the bicycle tire, a missed tv program, friends serving food I don't like at a gathering, are not bad things, just inconsequential: neither bad or good. I would even argue that from a purely objective point of view, a "professional disaster" pales in comparison to a health disaster. After a professional disaster, you can still pick yourself up and move on.

[Rathnam]

Good or Bad is a relative term. I have to agree with the previous comment that a professional disaster pales in comparison to a health disaster. But to a person, this difference is visible only if it happens within a short period of time. Remarkably one gets tough with each experience and hence the same event if it repeats, is less bothersome.
Everyone I believe has the ability to have a positive outlook in a bad situation if they gain visibility to a comparison. I have gone through a period of whining only to look at other's problem and realize that my issues were nothing.
Knowing that your problem is not as bad, helps get out of the situation faster and better, but this seems more like a motivational technique than an objective problem solving capability, or are these both closely tied?

[OvarceExhareE]

Sounds like a very interesting concept! Do you have a sense of wonder about my efficient patch I have a nice joke for you) What geometric figure represents a lost parrot? A polygon.