5. Is it always good to be an optimist?

Clarification of terms
Good:
o Beneficial to oneself and others: emotionally, psychologically and even physically
o The best response / attitude or perspective in any situation. An attitude that will
achieve the best outcome.
An Optimist:
o has a disposition or tendency to look on the more favourable side of events or
conditions
o expects the most favourable outcome.
o believes that unfavourable circumstances are temporary and can be surmounted
o believes that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.
Assumption:
Being an optimist has its benefits
Approaches:
In every circumstance, it is always good to be an optimist/be optimistic
It is too absolute a statement and optimism is not always the best response in all
situations.
**A good script will take a more comparative/ evaluative approach (betw
optimists/pessimists and realists) rather than list the benefits of being an optimist or the
situations in which it is good to be optimistic.
Yes: It is always good to be an optimist
1. Optimists positive perspectives do provide them the emotional strength and
resilience that is necessary to meet the everyday challenges of life
i) This perspective does provide emotional strength and resilience and prevents
an individual from sliding into despair and depression, fear and insecurity. These
emotions are always debilitating and can affect someones emotional and
psychological health if carried to extreme:- suicidal thoughts and self-harm. The
knock-on effect can and will manifest physically as well as these negative emotions
manifest in obesity/eating disorders, blood pressure problems and chronic illnesses.
ii) Optimism creates the right mental attitude to move forward in search for
answers to a problem instead of allowing issues to remain as they are. Optimists
view problems as temporary setbacks whilst a pessimist will approach the exact
problem with the attitude that nothing will change and these situations will be
permanent. The right kind of optimism motivates one to build a better world because
he believes that a better world is achievable. It's the perspective that leads to
sensible risk-taking. It acknowledges that one may not always win and that when
things don't turn out well, one can try a different approach and then another until a
solution is found. The alternative, which is cynicism, is sitting back and accepting
unacceptable outcomes. Eg: Singapores entire history of development has been the
dream of several optimists in government and amongst her people. People who
believed that a better life was possible despite Singapores limiting circumstances.

2. In a world where there is so much that is negative, Optimism inspires others:inspires hope and motivates people to work towards a vision.
Optimism can galvanise people to achieve worthy yet difficult goals together.
Optimism provides the positive mindset that unites and potentially smoothes over
petty differences for the greater good. This is an especially valued quality in leaders.
Eg: Franklin Roosevelt, who presided over a country with a third-rate army,
ordered an industrial transformation of the American economy on a scale that
seemed simply out of reach, with the focused and very urgent aim of
defeating the Nazis. He declared, "Let no man say it cannot be done. It must
be done." Many muttered that it couldn't be achieved. But the country got to
work. Everyone made sacrifices and pitched in. The U.S. met production
goals that were almost inconceivably ambitious. And it turned the tide of war.
Eg2: Martin Luther King was an American Baptist minister, activist,
humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He
is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent
civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. "I Have a Dream" came to
be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.
It held out hope that a method involving nonviolent civil disobedience would
help African Americans achieve the dream of racial equality. It was a worthy
goal but it appeared so difficult to achieve through non-violent means. His
optimism and efforts helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of
reformers in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964.
Disagree: Not always good to be an optimist
1. In actual fact Moderate Optimism mixed with a healthy dose of Realism is good,
extreme optimism is not.
In large part, it does appear that optimism is a healthy perspective on life if it is
tempered with a good dose of realism. The most efficient/effective business team is
the one which comprises of optimists and naysayers, people who hope for the best
but routinely plan for the worst. Routinely asking What if? so that the chances of
asking, What now? is less.
2. Optimists do not plan for a downside/downturn because they do not believe
that there is a need
People who are wired to believe everything will turn out well have trouble planning for
the worst.
In business:
Business models are changing faster than they ever have before. The old rules and
solutions no longer apply. Optimists are less inclined to create a Plan B for things
going wrongthey do not really believe they will need one. A business staffed by
optimists can still foolishly hold out hope as their corporation steers ever closer to
bankruptcy. In a tough business climate, if a team is fighting to invent a new model
or steer through massive industry change, a team of optimists might stall, as the
team waits for things to turn out better.
Eg: When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives all too easily fall
victim to making decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational
weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits, talents
and capabilities of the company and underestimate costs, missing the potential for
mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, managers pursue initiatives that are
unlikely to come in on budget or on timeor to ever deliver the expected returns.

**Oracle has been too optimistic on profitability of the cloud business. Oracles
shares havent recovered from its disappointing fourth quarter miss in June 2015. As
a result, Oracle has had to offer discounts on its cloud services to get customers to
try them and its salespeople are giving away the first year free subscription even at
times extending it to the first two years.
*Based in Redwood, California, Oracle Corporation is the largest software company
whose primary business is database products. Historically, Oracle has targeted highend workstations and minicomputers as the server platforms to run its database
systems.
Eg2: Competitor Neglect.
One of the key factors influencing the outcome of a business initiative is competitors
behaviour. In making forecasts, however, executives tend to focus on their own
companys capabilities and plans and are thus prone to neglect the potential abilities
and actions of rivals. Here, again, the result is an underestimation of the potential for
negative eventsin this case, price wars and overcapacity. Joe Roth, the former
chairman of Walt Disney Studios, expressed the problem well in a 1996 interview
with the Los Angeles Times: If you only think about your own business, you think,
Ive got a good story department, Ive got a good marketing department, were going
to go out and do this. And they dont think that everybody else is thinking the same
way.
3. Optimists confuse the power of positive thinking with the dangerous delusion
of wishful thinking A natural outcome of optimism bias is that optimists begin to
exaggerate the degree of control over we have over the outcomes of events as well
as the inclination to exaggerate their talents. Executives tend to attribute favourable
outcomes to factors under their control, such as their corporate strategy or their R&D
programs. Coined the "illusion of control", it is the reason why despite the fact that
the winning numbers for a lottery are randomly selected, people are more confident
of winning when they are given the liberty to pick the numbers. Pathological gamblers
often fall prey to such illusion of control. They believe that by adhering to
superstitions and engaging in good luck rituals, they can actually significantly
improve their chances of winning big
Eg: It is blatant optimism that rakes in millions at casinos, where, despite the
odds stacked against them, people will still keep playing black jack or spin the
dice for another shot at winning the prize money. It ignores the fact that there
are always events that will remain out of ones control and that there are
elaborate schemes that allows the casino to always win and outsmart the
gamblers.
Eg: It was self-confident optimism that created the economic mess that
America ended up with when the subprime mortgage crisis triggered by a
large decline in home prices. It was the optimism that falsely promised home
prices could only go up, so Americans could borrow as much as possible,
regardless of income.
4. Over-optimism can cloud minds and lead people to miscalculate risks and
make unsound decisions. It causes them to falsely assume that positive things are
more likely to happen to them than others, and that they are more invulnerable to
negative events than the rest. Such biasness, otherwise known as optimism bias, is
evident in how parents typically believe that their children are more talented than
others and push/place their children in courses that are not suitable for them leading
to high failure rates and low esteem issues in the child and frustration on the part of
the parents. Many frustrations can be avoided when people do not allow themselves
to get carried away by their enthusiasm and unrealistic optimism. At times like this,

positive thinking distracts them from looking at the situation holistically and
realistically, preferring instead to focus on a rosy picture that may not exist.
5. Disregarding negative emotions:
Sadly, so much focus has been given to the power of positive thinking that people no
longer appreciate the value of negative emotions. Contrary to what some self-help
books may suggest, psychological well-being doesnt simply improve when people try
to think positively and shut out all sadness, anger, fear and other unpleasant feelings.
Without feeling the emotional pain that inevitably arises from various setbacks
encountered in life, a person will never be driven to change things for the better for
themselves and for others
6. Optimists Tend To Be Too Positive to Take Care of Themselves:
Optimists also apply their power of positive thinking to their own health. There is a
higher correlation between optimists and unhealthy lifestyle characteristics. They
tend to be less inclined to maintain fitness, diet and sleep habits under pressure,
because they believe they will be fine in the end. They will routinely engage in
unhealthy lifestyle such as smoking and drinking thinking that they are less likely to
succumb to illnesses such as cancer and liver failure, choosing to ignore the warning
signs which their negative emotions are hinting to them and losing that grip on reality.