It is pretty easy to feel pessimistic about the future. We all have our own list of reasons: global warming, species extinction, AI, rising national debt, erosion of democratic norms, increasing authoritarianism, inequality. Looking at the world through that lens, it is not hard to understand why so many young people feel pessimistic and overwhelmed. There is plenty to be afraid of, and there are rational reasons to be fearful. But fear can also become the default lens through which we view and imagine the future, and that carries real risks too.
Fear Itself
In fact, the danger of fear was perhaps best articulated by FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In our current context, that might go a little too far—there are plenty of things worth fearing, and I am not suggesting that we ignore bad possibilities or simply try to be less pessimistic. But both pessimism and optimism are responses to uncertainty: optimism is expecting things to turn out well, and pessimism is expecting them to turn out poorly. Neither assumption is inherently helpful (or unhelpful), and both have their place. We all naturally veer a little toward one or the other. The real challenge arises when we move too hard in either direction. When we assume everything will work out fine, we can ignore problems that need to be addressed. But we can also go too far in the other direction, allowing fear to become the default lens through which we imagine the future.
Last week, I wrote about trying to notice, trying to broaden our view at any moment, and paying attention to what is being left out. If we reflexively move toward pessimism and see problems everywhere, assuming that bad things will happen, it is worth noticing what pessimism is leaving out. What are we not seeing because of fear?
Probability, Possibility, Inevitability
After all, possibility does not mean probability, and probability does not mean inevitability. Without realizing it, we often move silently from this could happen to this is likely to happen to this will happen. Something that began as a possibility becomes a prediction, and eventually starts to feel like a fact. Fear can short-circuit our ability to distinguish between possibility, prediction, and perception.
Pessimism is often presented as realism, and it is one way we protect ourselves from disappointment. Loss aversion gives us another reason to lean this way: losses tend to affect us more strongly than equivalent gains. We naturally give more psychological weight to what we might lose than what we might gain. Pessimism can make us appear smart and thoughtful. Someone who can list all the reasons why something might cause problems seems much more considered and wise than someone who says, “I’m sure it will work out.” We often reward people for identifying problems and distrust people who express hope, as though seeing everything that could go wrong is evidence that we are seeing reality clearly.
Confirmation and Sounding Smart
But pointing out all the problems with something can make us sound smart while carrying real costs. It narrows our attention, potentially to the point that we miss things. It makes threats easier to see, but when we are oriented toward threats, we may see them where they do not exist– or magnify small challenges into outsize risks. It can be much harder to take a chance or see opportunities when we are primed to see the downside of things. The more we live in problems, the more we focus our attention on problems and suffering, often to the point that we miss the beauty of what is actually in front of us. We sometimes suffer now in preparation for suffering that may never come.
There’s another psychological principle that helps explain this: confirmation bias, our tendency to notice and give greater weight to information that supports what we already believe while overlooking information that challenges it. If we believe things will go badly, we are more likely to notice evidence that confirms that belief. The more we fear, the more we anticipate and notice danger, the more danger we see, and the more dangerous the world appears. Our prediction feels confirmed and justified, and the cycle continues. We are seeing things that are real, but the problem is that we are seeing certain things and losing sight of many others.
The obvious corrective is to replace fear with hope or optimism—and that can be useful. But perhaps a more useful shift is available. We don't need to convince ourselves that everything will be okay. We need to remain open to favorable possibilities that fear has stopped us from seeing.
Signals and the Unknown
When we notice fear rising within ourselves, we can use it as a signal that our field of vision may be narrowing and that we are becoming too threat-oriented. Instead of trying to argue ourselves out of fear, we can broaden our attention. We can deliberately look for other possibilities—not because they are necessarily more likely, but because they are possible too.
After all, fear often arises in the context of the unknown. And the defining characteristic of the unknown is that we don't know what will happen. So instead of asking only what could go wrong?, we might ask the broader question: what else could happen?
Uncertainty is uncomfortable, and our brains don't particularly like living in a neutral, uncertain space. Both optimism and pessimism are responses to uncertainty. We tell ourselves stories about what will happen, and those stories are often shaped by our own experiences. If things have generally worked out well in our lives, we may expect that to continue. If we have experienced a lot of suffering, we may expect more of it too. Neither response is inherently irrational or bad. Some outcomes really are more likely than others, and defensive pessimism can sometimes be useful. The concern is what happens when either pessimism or optimism becomes our default response to uncertainty.
We don't need to manufacture optimism or pessimism. We need to notice when either has become our default and practice staying open to the possibility that the future may be different from the one we have imagined. There are plenty of reasons to be afraid of what might happen. But there are also possibilities we cannot yet see, including possibilities that are good. We don't need to know that things will work out. We just need to remember that we don't know that they won't.
Love,
Doc
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