We constantly project into the future.

We can't help it; that's part of what makes us human. Our frontal lobes - the area of the brain right behind the forehead - constantly thinks about the future. Creating, reviewing, rehearsing, and discarding various scenarios about what will happen. (And what won't happen...)

"What's gonna happen?"

"What's gonna happen?"

"What's gonna happen?"

Projecting into the future rates as normal, healthy, human behavior. If -

If we're projecting positive, healthy thoughts and feelings.

All too often, however, those projections are NOT based on positive, optimistic thoughts. Rather, they consist of quite negative ones.

According to the world's foremost expert on optimism, Dr. Martin Seligman, everyone is born optimistic. And yet, 95% of grownups are pessimists, not optimists. What goes wrong?

What turns youthful optimism into grown-up pessimism - and so often cynicism as well? The answer consists of two words - pain and shame.

As a youth, every human experiences pain and shame. It's an unavoidable part of the heritage of today's society.

Maybe the pain and shame were severe, maybe not.

A tender young seedling can be crushed (or deformed) much more easily than a full-grown tree. It doesn't take a lot of abuse - or neglect - to produce a lifetime of damage.

The nature of shame involves passing it on from one generation to the next.

The worthlessness, the 'dirtiness', the rage that I feel becomes like a hot potato and I find myself compelled to pass it on - and always to someone weaker than me.

Just like the worthlessness, the 'dirtiness', and the rage were given to me by my parents so I must pass it on to my kids.

And thus begins the warping, the twisting, the distorting, of my youthful optimism into the grown-up pessimism.

Shame involves a lot more, but you get the idea. It's not biological. It's not genetic. It's part of the heritage.

One of the end results of shame is that I become pessimistic and often times cynical as well. However, instead of calling it 'pessimism'. I call it 'intelligence'.

"It won't work. That's a stupid idea."

"It'll never fly.”

"You can't do that."

"Nobody's gonna get the best of me! I'm too smart!"

I call it ‘street smarts’ as I really become too LAZY to do the work of evaluating. Thinking and feeling is hard work. Cynicism and judgments, however, seem to come with almost no effort at all.

Instead of exerting the effort to carefully evaluate a situation, I become blinded by my own pessimism. I become cynical of everything but my own cynicism.

(And I must never, ever, ever question my own assumptions!)

95% of the population finds itself in this boat without even realizing it. Of course, very few people label themselves as pessimistic. In fact, we like to think of ourselves as open-minded optimists.

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