Escaping from Holds: Pessimism, Realism, and Optimism
Our Powerful Word this month is OPTIMISM, a word and an idea that all-too-often is misunderstood. Here is an example of optimism in action and what being optimistic allows to come into being.
One of the first scenarios I teach new students is how to escape when someone grabs them and tries to hold them tightly.
When I present this scenario to students I watch and listen closely to how they react because how they immediately react tells me a lot about them and how they approach problems.
The most common reaction is for them to focus on directly removing the grabbing hand or arm.
They focus on the immediate problem and don’t notice anything that is going on other than the grab, only that they want that hand removed.
This falls under the category of anti-optimism, what we all know as pessimism.
Pessimism, and a pessimistic view, only see the bad parts of a scenario, as in “Oh no! He’s grabbing me. I’m doomed!”
Focusing only on the negative aspect of the attack leads pessimists into something worse, cynicism, and causes thoughts such as,”He’s too strong. I can never learn how to escape this.”
Pessimism is NOT Realism
Pessimists argue that they are “seeing the world as it really is,” and that optimists are deluded, however, according to research they are wrong.
Pessimists see and project their negative viewpoints onto a situation and skew it, e.g., they interpret a neutral expression as an angry face and see threat when there is none.
A Realist would see the grab as two bodies connected with zero judgment, and reading into a situation as little as possible.
He might say, “he grabbed her,” without attributing a reason for it because he could be trying to hurt her, or he could be trying to help her and is moving her away from danger, or he could be trying to arrest her because she is a criminal.
This type of absolute neutrality is difficult, if not impossible because we are always trying to read and interpret each other’s actions; there is always more important information to sense beyond the purely physical act.
The scenario changes when instead of “he grabbed her,” it’s “he is grabbing me.”
It would be downright odd if your response to being grabbed was,”that’s interesting, he put his hand on me and is squeezing harder than I’m used to being touched. I wonder why he’s doing that, and what does it mean to be touched in this way?”
This type of reaction we might call, naive.
One advantage trying to be a realist would confer is that you would stop overly-focusing on all the negatives surrounding the attack.
A realist who’s not such a robot might react with ,”I am being attacked, so I should protect myself.”
A realist would understand there is a way out of the grab, and then proceed to look for it.
Better, but it could be even better than this.
How would an Optimist deal with this situation?
An optimist would, like the realist, accurately assess the situation,”I’m under attack, I need to deal with it, and this is how I will respond.”
The optimist instantly understands how bad it could get, like the pessimist, as in “if I don’t do anything I could be really hurt,” but does not fall into helplessness and hopelessness as the pessimist tends toward.
The realist sees the grab and decides to defend himself and to find the counter move, the pessimist gets tunnel-vision and focuses only on getting rid of the grabbing hand, but the optimist sees the larger picture, the totality of the situation and moves to find a way out.
The pessimist, and the realist, may find themselves struggling to release the grab, making the attacker more determined to hold on, and creating a tug-of-war over the hand.
The realist may remember that “going against the thumb” releases the grab and then tries to apply this principle.
The optimist, knowing an attack creates its own vulnerabilities, may disregard the grabbing hand completely and instead, twist the attacker’s elbow or head to control him so as he reacts to being unbalanced, lets go of the grab.
Distinct from the realist, the optimist is not searching for the one correct answer, he moves knowing that an answer exists and when he takes his next step, the answer will begin to take shape. It may take several more moves, but as he acts, the solution will eventually appear.
The optimist doesn’t think,”there is no grab,” he doesn’t have a Pollyanna-like denial of what’s happening; this is the mistake people make with optimism, confusing it with denial of reality. Nor does the optimist think,”this is so easy to escape from,” optimism is not hubris.
Optimists know that when you see the negatives, but focus on the positives, when you act from the strengths, the weaknesses tend to fall by the wayside and become irrelevant.
True Optimism, ultimately, lets you see all sides of a situation, the good and the bad, and then allows you to choose the best options and courses of action that will most likely lead to better outcomes.
Henry Ford famously said,”if you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”
This is the crux of optimism/pessimism, that your mindset dictates your responses, and then those responses, in turn, create your reality.
When you want to change, to improve, to grow, or to escape what holds you back, then optimism is your best bet.