----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: AW: virus: know thy enemies
Faith is motivational - and it can work collectively and
individually. However it can motivate large numbers of people behind a
particular goal as well. Imagine if there were some global
catastrophe. Faith in mankind and it's ability and ingenuity might be just
the sort of thing that we'd need to overrcome our daily hardships.
_____________
LenKen:
There’s a reason the most optimistic candidate tends to win in
a democratic election (well, as long as they’re not just a cock-eyed optimist,
anyway). Leaders who have faith in the ingenuity and resourcefulness of
humankind will be able to accomplish far more than their pessimistic, Negative
Nellie counterparts will. When people think progress is impossible, that
usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And on the scale of individuals,
optimistists tend to be healthier, more productive, and more long-lived than
pessimists. Martin E.P. Seligman has done extensive research on the issue,
of course, and he’s written fairly extensively about that research in, e.g., his
books Learned
Optimism and Authentic
Happiness.
Here’s a link to the website of The
Positive Psychology Center—which is “a not-for-profit
organization . . . [that conducts] research on Positive
Psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and on optimism and
pessimism”:
’Tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have known
what it’s like
to have sex with someone besides yourself. —LenKen, Esq.