Member-only story
Embracing the Value of Tragic Optimism
Suffering is inevitable — but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a source of growth.
If you’ve read my content for more than a day, you know that I’ve generally advocated for more optimism and hope in the world. Life is too negative as it is. People are too quick to pile on to each other and beat themselves up over bygones.
But there’s also problems with excessive optimism, and pseudoscientific books, like The Secret, which posits that the mere act of believing in something fully will manifest it into being. This theory has long been disdained and criticized by academics, as lacking any real proof of what it claims. Yet the book is popular for a reason, as it taps into an insufferable strain of excessive positivity that verges on self-delusion.
Avoiding staring down the hard things in life is poor for our mental health, leading to more suffering, depression, and anxiety. There’s another way of viewing positivity, that is more realistic, grounded, and useful for contending with life’s many woes.
The origins of tragic optimism
Famed psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, introduced tragic optimism in 1949, which posits that life’s three inherent tragedies (pain, guilt, and death) are things we should embrace, arguing it’s…
