The Emergent Experience Podcast

S3 E3 | Blind Optimism

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 3 of the Emergent Experience Podcast

Synopsis: What is blind optimism and in which ways can it be a barrier to being present?

In this episode we discuss:

What is blind optimism (also known as “Irrational Optimism”)? “[A] person [who] has a warped vision of reality, which is based on desire, not how things actually are.” -Psychology Today (Link is below)

Examples of blind optimism

The culture of blind optimism

Why it’s necessary to have a realistic view on situations

Church and blind optimism

Leads to a lack of diligence because people become unwilling to engage and do the work necessary to fully be a part of the process of change, growth, and redemption.

James 2:17 So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?” Luke 14:28

Proverbs 14:23 In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

2 Peter 1:5-7 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self- control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Is there a “happy” medium how do you get there?

The New Yorker Article:

“According to a great deal of research, positive fantasies may lessen your chances of succeeding. In one experiment, the social psychologists Gabriele Oettingen and Doris Mayer asked eighty-three German students to rate the extent to which they “experienced positive thoughts, images, or fantasies on the subject of transition into work life, graduating from university, looking for and finding a job.” Two years later, they approached the same students and asked about their post-college job experiences. Those who harbored positive fantasies put in fewer job applications, received fewer job offers, and ultimately earned lower salaries. The same was true in other contexts, too. Students who fantasized were less likely to ask their romantic crushes on a date and more likely to struggle academically. Hip-surgery patients also recovered more slowly when they dwelled on positive fantasies of walking without pain.”

Planning an event with your friend but has no preparation or knowledge about how to successfully execute or you get fired from you job, have this notion that “things will work itself out” yet you fail to prepare your resume, or even acknowledge my you were fired in the first place? Where is the curiosity in that?
Blind optimism and this over stressed culture of “positive vibes only or positive thinking only” foster distance and can stunt authentic relationship.
You want to yield the best outcome for your life. Walking blindly can only set your up for failure in all areas of life.
Many of us have been taught to pray away every possible opportunity that could be harmful, alarming, or distressful. Instead of acknowledging what is REALISTICALLY needed to get through it we “fairytail” our way in and out and sometimes never out!! For instance you had a health scare, and you worked diligently with your Medical Providers to get better. You fail to acknowledge in your testimony the hard work you and your medical providers put in to get a positive result. It perpetuates the blind optimism in others and put others at risk for poor decision making that could mean life of death. May sound a little extreme but we’ve seen and lived through this.

Luke, one of Jesus’ disciples, was a physician.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. (Mark 2:17a)”

Technically speaking, if someone were to exercise faith in a particular situation, they’d need to have some insight and ability to admit that something is wrong.

We should meet things with more inquiry or curiosity. Imagine this invisible spectrum where blind optimism in on one end and pessimism is on the other. On the Blind optimism end you walk through life with no question, let things fall how they fall, no acceptance of the uncomfortable things that may come with the decisions you make or with in a given situation. You refuse to take personal responsibility and continue to make the same choices over and over. You miss opportunities for growth and success or severely delay it.

On the pessimistic end you can become incredibly inactive, stunted, angry, “analysis paralysis”, you scrutinize every little detail, and see the worst outcome in everything, you take the responsibility that nothing or no one can change it, even yourself. The results are the same on either end. There has to be balance.