On Developing Aggressive Optimism

The Desperate Need for Hope in Our Anxious Time

If you’ve kept up at all with my, what were supposed to be, nearly daily journal posts, you’ll know both that I’ve been unable to keep up with that aspiration and the reason why. In case you missed it, some relatively severe financial hardship has dictated that I take on a second full time job, working overnight shifts. I have a wife who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom (and I support her in that) and so financial provision is my duty in the family.

I will do literally anything to ensure they have a good standard of living. So, here I am. Doing something I’m sure is at least somewhat unhealthy in the short term, and probably quite hazardous in the long term. But I simply must do it. The boats were burned for me. I am searching for other employment opportunities that will get me back to a more reasonable schedule, but that is going to be a process. I was unfortunately naive in dedicating a decade of my life to a small company, only to be, well let’s just use the words (profanity and all), totally fucked by my boss. I innocently believed he had my best interests at heart and when I went to him on a personal level seeking after-hours work to supplement my inflation-wracked static income I was assured we could find something to help me out. After a few weeks of stalling, he returned not only with a “sorry, I don’t have anything for you” but indeed a reduction in my current income. So yeah, lesson learned there. Seems no matter what they say, you are a number on the spreadsheet at the end of the day. Lamentable, yes. But we only can respond with the platitude, “is what it is”.

Anyhow, I’m not writing this to give you a sob story about my life. I’m writing to give some, I hope, helpful insight into what I’m learning during this experience. I have my qualms about the modern internet version of Stoicism but going back to the source material I have great admiration for those frequenters of “the Porch” and their commitment to using every life situation as a practicing ground for developing virtue. Saints Peter and Paul, among many other Biblical figures, as well as the giants of Buddhism (my background, though not current faith), echo these sentiments. Paul, Siddartha himself, Seneca and Epictetus, all tell us flatly that in life there will be suffering. It is the First Noble Truth. It is a plain statement of the Lord Jesus in John’s gospel. It is evident if we will but pay attention and it is attested to by the experience of every non-delusional human being.

However, what the great moral thinkers of all times and creeds tell us is that there is an opportunity here to overcome, by using the pummeling blows of life to mold us into strong towers of virtue. The opportunity to build our house upon the rock, where no storm can shake it. For me, I do this primarily by endeavoring to obey the teaching and commands of Jesus Christ. But truth is truth, whatever the source (something I believe the Lord himself would endorse) and so I reference these other thinkers because they also have things to teach me and you.

In the classical or cardinal virtues, the aspiration is the development of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude (or Courage), and Temperance (self-control). I believe anyone of any faith or philosophical orientation is benefitted by the earnest pursuit of these qualities, and the training ground for them is hardship. The Christian tradition adds to these the “Theological Virtues” of Hope, Faith, and Love. I’m not looking to write a comprehensive moral treatise here, if that were even possible in this format. Instead, I want to focus on finding opportunities to develop the first of the three theological virtues in what was a surprising place for me.

Before I go there, a definition is in order. Hope in common speech now is basically synonymous with “wish”. We say things like “I hope it rains” or “I hope the economy picks up soon”. There’s an implicit lack of certainty in those statements. Maybe not even implicit, but plain. I think we often convey that the sentences should be completed “…but I really know that it won’t”. As such, our common way of talking is actually the opposite of the virtue of Hope. If you’ll forgive the cliche of quoting Webster’s Dictionary, I’ll direct you to the entry for Hope in the original 1828 edition (a lovely book to simply read through, by any right):

A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. hope differs from wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.

Now, since I became a Christian I’ve always at least mentally and intellectually assented to the idea that God is in control of the river of events and working it all to a grand and profoundly Good conclusion. But the difficulties of life can often be overwhelming and I, and I assume others, find my strong belief in that waning sometimes.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect:

My new overnight job is in sales and as such comes with the attendant cultishness and focus on a kind of outrageous positivity that’s pretty easy to laugh at. However, I always want to do a good job and put my best foot forward (and they seem to really be genuine and nice people at this job), so I actually started digging into some of the kind of “self-help”/self-development literature the company owners recommend. What I’ve discovered surprised me.

While I still sort of object to the silly Pollyannaism that is in those kinds of books, I’m coming around pretty strongly to thinking that it’s less the means in such books I object to than the ends. So, what I mean is that by and large they are focused on leveraging all the potential powers of the human being freed of limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging actions into the attainment of material success. In other words, they preach the development of manifestly good virtues towards the end of making money. Now, I’m not against making money. Certainly, in my current situation I want to make as much as a I can. But it occurred to me reading this stuff, “what if I directed these attitudes and actions at higher ends, in addition to finances”?

Here’s where I’m talking about with what I called aggressive optimism in the title. Yes, circumstances are going to beat you down. That’s a given. But these sort of books that seem silly at first do generally at root recommend taking total responsibility for your life, working hard, treating others well, etc. And all of this is backed by a kind of intense and nearly blind optimism that, if you do these things, life will get better.

And you know what? I believe that. Certainly, they’re operating at a deeper level than material gain, but I think the great religions and philosophies, if they have any practical value whatsoever, are also teaching this. The rub is that, just to be frank, religion and philosophy, because of the depth of the material, can be overwhelming to comprehend and act upon. These airport-rack self-help books, the better ones, give you really simple and actionable things to do right now. Yes, the Sermon on the Mount also does. But I for one am going to take the help wherever I find it right now. And I don’t doubt it providential that I found the encouragement I needed to soldier on with my current situation in the books sent my way by the new job I’ve taken. God is ironic and funny enough to speak through seemingly silly self-help books.

What I’m getting at is that we live in difficult times for most people. And a big part of the anxiety that generates is due to a feeling that we lack agency. That it’s indeed hopeless to give our very best. Well, admitting that I have and likely will succumb to that idea again, I think that’s just a flat-out lie. The truth the great thinkers down to the corny motivational speakers tell us is that if you actually give life your all, and work at it with wisdom and virtue, it will get better.

Now it’s not for us to know what the timescale for that is. I believe in eternal life and so I don’t even know if the resolution happens while we wear this mortal coil. But I believe with everything in me that it is true that if we earnestly pursue virtue with diligence and enthusiasm, things will change for the better. And the more I explore this idea in my faith and even in these business books I’m reading through, the more I believe that. The more intensely I want to go after it with everything I have.

Optimism is the idea that you can handle your shit. Whatever comes, I’m going to deal with it and bring a harvest out of rotten and dead and diseased ground. With God’s help, I am going to turn chaos and suffering into beauty. I think we can all do this. I think we should try to do it as hard as we can. Believe. Be aggressively optimistic.

Have true Hope. don’t’ listen to people that naysay against this idea. What claim do they have to pessimism being true?

And listen, Hope is a virtue. Always. Even if you are wrong. If you go into the battlefield with the hope of victory and are slain, it is a profound nobility that you died with dignity and a smile on your face. A lightness in your heart and a believing eye upon a better tomorrow. This type of person is always superior to the resigned cynic. This is why we love the underdog or last stand story.

If you give your all, you have won the day. Keep doing it with Hope and Faith and you win at life. No matter what happens.

We need real Hope these days. You can cultivate it. I can. I’m working on it as hard as a possibly can. I can’t speak strongly enough about how urgent this matter is.

So go after whatever is troubling you with this attitude. I believe in my case and in yours, given enough time and dedication and faith, we will move mountains.

I have Hope. In my future. In yours if you’ll strive for it. In the future of the whole universe under God’s loving hand.

If you will endeavor to live this way, you will be literally unstoppable. This is the heroism we so desperately need in our age, and it is within your grasp.

Let us claim it, every man and woman who dares to.

Godspeed.