I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
But I do know that if I spend every day believing we are in a metacrisis, that we are on the verge of ecological collapse, that humans are about to shoot ourselves in the foot with nuclear warfare or bioweapons or AI rampages, then I am very unhappy.
But if I believe that the universe is fundamentally good, that people are fundamentally good, and do my best to be present and loving in this moment, to roll up my sleeves and help the people I can in the ways I can and feel called to… well, I’m a lot happier.
I choose optimism not on the basis of first principles, not because I have some inside knowledge or divine proof, but because it makes me happier, subjectively, phenomenologically. And while that’s enough for me, personally, I’d bet the farm and say that that aligns with truth, also.
“People are unhappy because they are out of harmony with God’s will.”
- Peace Pilgrim