How to stay optimistic in these dark times

There are different kinds of optimism; let’s think carefully about which we need.

 
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter gave his famous “Crisis of Confidence” speech (also known as the “malaise” speech, though he didn’t actually use the word). Forty-three years later, it seems as if the country is stuck in at least as bad of a funk. In a recent article, Derek Thompson of the Atlantic reported on rising feelings of hopelessness among teens, and posted this startling graph:

Thompson’s colleague, Molly Jong-Fast, wrote a column around the same time describing how life now seems permeated with fear. And a January poll from NBC News found mounting dissatisfaction with the direction of the country:

Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, that their household income is falling behind the cost of living, that political polarization will only continue and that there’s a real threat to democracy and majority rule…[W]hen Americans were asked to describe where they believe America is today, the top answers were “downhill,” “divisive,” “negative,” “struggling,” “lost” and “bad.”

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Πηγή: noahpinion.substack.com

προσωπική ανάπτυξη, αισιοδοξία, Noah Smith