![]() ![]() These shared neural networks gleaned insight into how the brain generates hope, why we’re able to move forward after trauma, and what makes the brains of optimists different from those of pessimists. ![]() This phenomenon led her to probe deeper into the neural system responsible for recollecting these episodes from our past - a system that, contrary to previous belief, hadn’t evolved just for memory but to also imagine the future. Sharot has been studying “flashbulb memories” - recollections with sharp-edged, picturelike qualities, usually about unexpected arousing or traumatic events - since the 9/11 attack, investigating why the brain tends to “Photoshop” these images, adding contrast, enhancing resolution, inserting and deleting details. At least that’s the argument British neuroscientist Tali Sharot makes in The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain - a fascinating yet accessible exploration of how and why our brains construct a positive outlook on life even in the direst of circumstances. The reason pessimism is easily escapable, as Martin Seligman posits, might just be that its opposite is our natural pre-wired inclination. Reviewed in full, with more images, here. The project is an invitation to look at existential truisms with new eyes in a context of honesty and simplicity, delivered through such outstanding graphic design that the medium itself becomes part of the charm of the message. That’s exactly what you’ll find in Everything Is Going To Be OK - a delightful pocket-sized anthology of positive artwork from a diverse lineup of independent and emerging artists, designers and illustrators, including Brain Pickings favorites Marian Bantjes, Marc Johns and Mike Perry. In a world brimming with cynicism, it’s a rare and wonderful occasion to find an oasis of sincerity and optimism. America will lose its economic place to less pessimistic nations than ours, and this pessimism will sap out our will to bring about social justice in our own country.” ~ Martin Seligman, 1990įrom a fascinating background on the study and psychology of optimism to hands-on tests you (and your child) can do at home to tangible metrics for your progress, the book is a powerful blueprint for reforming your deepest pessimistic tendencies, whether you consider them mild, moderate or profoundly severe. If this epidemic continues, I believe America’s place in the world will be in jeopardy. is not just about mental suffering it is also about lowered productivity and worsened physical health. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life does away with the usual cliches of the self-help genre to deliver a clinical researcher’s crisp prescription for developing the cognitive skills necessary for transcending pessimism, which Seligman argues is fully escapable.Īs you read this book, you will see that there is an epidemic of depression among young adults and among children in the United States today. But his second book, originally published over 20 years ago, remains one of his most influential. Martin Seligman is a Brain Pickings regular - known for his research on learned helplessness and revered as the father of positive psychology, his Authentic Happiness is one of the 7 most essential books on the art and science of happiness, and his Flourish made our 2011 Summer Reading List. More importantly, it’s one of the most important handbooks to being a thoughtful, introspective and, yes, hopeful human being. Published in 1943, translated into 180 languages since and adapted to just about every medium, Exupéry’s famous novella is one of the best-selling books of all time. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Lyrical, charmingly written and beautifully illustrated, it sweeps you into a whirlwind of childhood imagination to peel away at the deepest truths about the world and our place in it. THE LITTLE PRINCEĪntoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, one of our must– read children’s books with philosophy for grown-ups, is among the most poetic and hopeful reflections on human existence ever penned. Here are seven wonderful books that help do just that with an arsenal ranging from the light visceral stimulation of optimistic design to the serious neuroscience findings about our proclivity for the positive. And while a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism may help us get by, it’s in those times that we need nothing more than to embrace life’s promise of positivity with open arms. Every once in a while, we all get burned out. ![]()
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