Happy Thursday!

Zoo Poster:
Please, do not frighten the ostrich, the floor is concrete! :) 

People also can be like ostriches. When they have problems they put their heads in the sand and say: “Everything is okay, I am a happy guy! The sun is shining and day is great”. On one hand these people are optimistic, on another hand they are hiding behind the wall of blind positive attitude. We call these people passive optimists. Guys who just play in optimism as they don’t have guts to solve their problems and to move forward. Because everybody has problems! And whether you want it or not, you have to solve your problems!

Passive optimism can be a dangerous thing: There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. – Yvon Chouinard

There are so many situations for which it makes no sense to be happy: when you’re in danger, if someone you love is suffering, or when you didn’t reach your dream. But the point is to take your problem as a challenge and to move forward to success.  We call people who are able to recognize all problems and to find solutions active optimists.

Here we want to give you an example with the “the Stockdale Paradox”.

It is named after admiral James Stockdale, who was a United States military officer held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War. Stockdale was tortured more than twenty times by his captors, and never had much reason to believe he would survive the prison camp and someday get to see his wife again. And yet, as Stockdale told, he never lost faith during his ordeal: “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

So here comes the paradox: While Stockdale had remarkable faith in the unknowable, he noted that it was always the most optimistic of his prison mates who failed to make it out of there alive. “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

They were thinking positively about the situations, but had been doing nothing to change it. Just like passive optimists.  

Lets look at Stockdale: he knew he was in hell, but, rather than bury his head in the sand, he stepped up and did everything he could to lift the morale and prolong the lives of his fellow prisoners. He created a tapping code so they could communicate with each other. He developed a milestone system that helped them deal with torture. And he sent intelligence information to his wife, hidden in the seemingly innocent letters he wrote.
In other words he was acting!

And the conclusion of this paradox is written like:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.
AND at the same time…
You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Nobody likes admitting that they’re fat, that they’re broke, that they’ve chosen the wrong career or that their marriage is falling apart. But admitting such truths is an absolute necessity if you want to grow and to be happy with your job or save your marriage. It might feel like you’re taking a few steps backward by doing so, but you can view that retreat as the pull-back on a sling shot: you’re just setting yourself up to make significant progress down the road.

Admit your problem, but not concentrate on it! Concentrate on its solving!

Express your joy and enjoy your life! Think about better things and ACT to reach them!

Happy Thursday!

Stay updated with Happiness every day on our fan-page! 

Resources that inspired us to create this post:
http://www.ndoherty.com/stockdale-paradox/
http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/10/happiness-is-overrated.html