Optimism
Despite the world going to shit
It’s May 1946 in Japan.
A year after World War 2 ended in September 1945, Japan’s economy was non-existent.
Cities were razed in wartime firebombings.
Famine was imminent, fueled by a combination of historically low industrial production and agricultural output.
People scavenged, queued for meager rations, and resorted to a black market in an environment of mass unemployment and hyper-inflation.
Japan was in ruins.
Yet, this was the exact circumstances in which Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded Sony.
Now, Sony is worth $143B USD.
How does that ever make sense?
Yeah… it doesn’t make sense.
Working out of a bombed out department store, Ibuka and Morita had no evidence of any future, yet chose to build something anyways.
The combination of optimism and agency is among the most important traits someone can have.
And optimism and agency will never be easy - pessimism is evolutionarily natural and not trying requires no effort.
It’s easy to just say and believe that everything is going to shit. There is an endless torrent of social, political, and economic evidence justifying this.
It’s easy to just settle with the idea that the world is the way it is and that your place in the world will not change no matter how hard you try.
It’s easy to doom scroll TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, or whatever other mind numbing social media, outsourcing rationality to strangers and pointing to echo chambers as consensus of everything being hopeless.
It’s easy to be a pessimist and to not try. And it seems almost cool to be one.
So… what do you get out this?
Does wallowing and being outraged at things that you cannot control ever actually improve the thing you cannot control?
Does the feeling of hopelessness ever drive agency and a proactive entrepreneurial spirit to make your life better?
Does complaining with people on the internet and in real life ever actually improve the actual underlying circumstances that causes complaining in the first place?
There is no utility in being pessimistic and not trying.
And sure, pessimists may actually be right 99% of the time. The grievances they point to usually are pretty legitimate.
But, being right, in this case, does not result in more outcomes; it’s very much the contrary.
All the outcomes are bestowed upon the optimists who are right 1% of the time but look like idiots before then.
This ranges across life from pursuing start ups to dating. Only one right business idea is needed to be rich. Only one right partner is needed for a successful marriage. It doesn’t matter how many failed ideas or bad break-ups there were before.
Over a long enough time horizon, optimists who keep trying are eventually rewarded.
And even if it is somehow known beforehand that the reward will never come, why not try?
What else is there to lose if everything is hopeless and the world is going to shit?