One of my favorite authors is the former head of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman. I think he should be read widely in times like ours. All bosses, parents and leaders should read his book, Authentic Happiness. He has made a life study of optimism and how it contributes to health and life growth.

Negative thinking is easy to find. It gets handed off without effort. And the truth is pessimists get it right more often than optimists. Some think its because we control our own destiny and there are more pessimists. But now is the time to swim upstream and find the tributaries of optimism.

Pessimists are impatient. The are always ready to tinker things to death. Optimists embrace reality but have the patience to let the best emerge. I hear a lot of jumpy impatience around me. Pessimism gets so easily connected with intelligence. If you can find what’s wrong with something for some reason you just sound smarter than the guy who says, “hey we’re making progress.”

But it is optimists who live longer, create more wealth, and remain healthier. And Seligman says actually optimists have higher IQ’s. And they also have happier friends. Seligman quotes a study from Harvard on what is called “mature defenses.” These are traits that increase maturity and greater happiness in life.

The traits are:

*Altruism …concern for the plight of others.

*Postponing gratification…. earning what you have.

*Future-mindedness…. knowing your best years have yet to arrive.

*Humor…the ability to laugh about yourself and life.

These actually sound a great deal like a life lived in faith. They have studied a large group of men since the mid-thirties with regard to these traits. They found that the men who possessed these traits in good measure were almost twice as strong in their eighties as those who didn’t. They had made more money. And had happier marriages. It does make a difference as to how you view life and express your experiences.

Serious people have always bothered me. There is a kind of fear in seriousness. It is built around the premise that we’d better get it right or we are done. Now, life can’t be a laugh a minute. But I prefer someone who gets a laugh out of their behavior than one who is upset about how others behave.

These aren’t times for serious people. These are times for optimists. I am collecting good things right now. The bad things are too easy to find. I know there are more things to cheer about than at first flush can be seen. I need all the IQ I can get right now so I don’t want to waste my mental capacity on being uptight.

I find sometimes you just have to remove yourself from toxic negativism. And you have to be ruthless with your own pessimism to move ahead. Anyway I caught myself getting negative this week. I was fearful and it sounded smarter to start to tear things apart. I caught myself. Everyone misses the mark here constantly. No one is naturally a perfect optimist. But those who flush the pessimism from their system live longer, smile bigger and think better.