What Does Informed Optimism Mean To You?

A warm thank you to everyone in this group for all of your kind words regarding my previous postings.

Lately I've been compiling information for a book I wanted to write about informed optimism. You see, there have been a host of books (for example, click here) that have been written in the recent months about the "self-help" culture and how some scholars believe that it actually led to the current recession we are experiencing.

Although I don't agree with many of the points from this school of thought, I do think that there have been serious issues raised about our tendency to be overly optimistic and non-realistic. It's not as pervasive in our culture as these authors might suggest, but there is a point here and I think we can all learn from it.

Which leads me to my request. If you have a moment, could you tell me a little about what informed optimism means to you? What does it mean to be optimistic in this day and age, especially when we are confronted with so many things that might bring us down.

To me, informed optimism is about our focusing on solutions, about what's right in this world. The more we focus on the good things, the more good things there will be to focus on. And so informed optimism is our tool to get ourselves on the right path.

But that's just me. What does "informed optimism" mean to you?

I'm opening this up to the group, I hope this will spark a great discussion and great material to spread with the world.

Please comment here, or send me an email at alec@operationoptimism.org. Thanks!