JUSTICE - Jan 2010
Two questions. How you answer may have serious consequences.A. “In unclear times, I usually expect the best.”
B. “If something can go wrong for me, it will.”
Two questions. How you answer may have serious consequences.
A. “In unclear times, I usually expect the best.”
B. “If something can go wrong for me, it will.”
In a recent study at the University of Pittsburgh, researcher Hilary Tindle and others asked such questions of 100,000 women aged 50-79 and then tracked their health for several years. Those who answered questions such as the first with “true” were categorized as “optimists.” The researchers discovered that these women had much better health than those who answered “true” to questions like the second. This latter group, labeled “pessimists,” were more likely to develop heart disease and to die sooner, either from heart disease or some other cause. In other words, if you look on the bright side, or are a hopeful person, you’re more likely to live longer than less hopeful people.
The really scary part of this study is not the potential for disease and death; it’s the possibility of the health insurance companies getting hold of these results and using them to determine insurance rates based on an individual being an optimist or pessimist. I consider myself an optimist, but a realistic one!
So, are you going to live longer than your partner, spouse, neighbor, co-worker or friend? If you answer “yes,” then maybe you’re an optimist. Or maybe you’re lucky, or perhaps you are just younger than any of these people. The key to living a long, productive life is to enjoy it.
Some might call this cheerfulness, a potentially annoying characteristic first thing in the morning. I call it a choice.
Years ago I was working in at a newspaper in Boulder, Colorado. I intended a career as a journalist. I was very excited about it and was delighted when I got an entry-level job right out of college. But after two and a half years, I left the job and the career path. I was turned off by the pessimism I encountered in the newsroom. I don’t know if it was endemic just to that paper or to the entire field, but I knew I didn’t want to choose that attitude for myself, particularly when I watched those at the other end of their careers carrying around a bitterness that infected everyone.
Helen Keller once said, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”
I choose hope because I want to, and because I can.
A. “In unclear times, I usually expect the best.”
B. “If something can go wrong for me, it will.”
In a recent study at the University of Pittsburgh, researcher Hilary Tindle and others asked such questions of 100,000 women aged 50-79 and then tracked their health for several years. Those who answered questions such as the first with “true” were categorized as “optimists.” The researchers discovered that these women had much better health than those who answered “true” to questions like the second. This latter group, labeled “pessimists,” were more likely to develop heart disease and to die sooner, either from heart disease or some other cause. In other words, if you look on the bright side, or are a hopeful person, you’re more likely to live longer than less hopeful people.
The really scary part of this study is not the potential for disease and death; it’s the possibility of the health insurance companies getting hold of these results and using them to determine insurance rates based on an individual being an optimist or pessimist. I consider myself an optimist, but a realistic one!
So, are you going to live longer than your partner, spouse, neighbor, co-worker or friend? If you answer “yes,” then maybe you’re an optimist. Or maybe you’re lucky, or perhaps you are just younger than any of these people. The key to living a long, productive life is to enjoy it.
Some might call this cheerfulness, a potentially annoying characteristic first thing in the morning. I call it a choice.
Years ago I was working in at a newspaper in Boulder, Colorado. I intended a career as a journalist. I was very excited about it and was delighted when I got an entry-level job right out of college. But after two and a half years, I left the job and the career path. I was turned off by the pessimism I encountered in the newsroom. I don’t know if it was endemic just to that paper or to the entire field, but I knew I didn’t want to choose that attitude for myself, particularly when I watched those at the other end of their careers carrying around a bitterness that infected everyone.
Helen Keller once said, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”
I choose hope because I want to, and because I can.
