Why you have to be optimistic

0:00Jonquilyn Hill:Support for Explain It To Me comes from Starbucks. Vibing to the hook of your favorite song, stepping outside and immediately feeling the sun on your face, sipping a refreshing drink. Those are the moments that energize us. And if that third one sounds particularly enticing, you might be due for a new energy refresher from Starbucks. It's the flavors you know and love. And now with a boost of energy, try the all new energy refreshers at Starbucks. Where do we find hope in this world? I think, frankly, that optimism is a denial of reality. My real, everyday world is nothing like what the media often makes it out to be.

0:42And that gives me hope.

0:46Jonquilyn Hill:On this show, we try to give you useful info to help you navigate the world around you. But real talk, there's an elephant in the room. Like, we're on the cusp of a technological revolution. and it might come for all of our jobs. Or here's how you can show up for your community in a crisis because the government isn't going to help. Or want some financial advice? Well, just kidding. The global economy is unstable and the world's falling apart. And yet somehow we have to go to work and do laundry and prepare for the future. There must be a way to face this. I'm John Glyn Hill, And this week on Explain It to Me from Vox, we're going to find out how together.

1:35My name is Jamil Zaki. I'm a professor of psychology at Stanford. I run a lab where we study things like empathy and kindness and the way that people show up for one another. And I'm an author. My latest book is called Hope for Cynics.

1:49Jonquilyn Hill:Okay, Jamil Zaki, friend of the show. What is the difference between hope and optimism? I feel like we use them interchangeably, but is there a difference? Huge difference. And this is really important. So optimism is the belief that the future will turn out well. And optimistic people tend to be pretty happy. They tend to be pretty healthy. But they can also be a bit complacent. I mean, if you think a bright future is on the way, you can kind of hang out on your couch and wait for it to arrive. Hope is, by contrast, the idea that the future could turn out well, but that we don't know what the future holds.

2:29And so a hopeful person feels as though, yeah, things could turn out well, but I need to work to make that happen. Being hopeful is not the same as being a Pollyanna. In fact, being hopeful acknowledges and embraces that things are difficult and asks, where can we go from here?

2:45Jonquilyn Hill:Yeah, I'm glad you brought up this idea of being a Pollyanna because I've seen the phrase toxic optimism as a way to suggest that, you know, when we tell people like, oh, it's going to be fine, it's going to be great, but it's not. Are there times where we're trying to get people to gaslight themselves into thinking things are better than they are? I think absolutely. If you tell people that they can only believe a certain thing, that is limiting their connection to reality. But let's think about the other side of this as well. I think a lot of the times we're almost gaslit into being more negative than we need to be.

3:19I think a lot of the times there's actually pressure to be negative about the future because there's the view that if you're positive, you must be a Pollyanna sort of, you know, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And if you think about it, yes, an optimist might not feel like they have to fight for anything because everything's going to turn out well. But a pessimist might not fight for very much either. There's a bunch of research that finds that people who are hopeless and cynical are less likely to vote or take part in social movements. And I often think that people in power, authoritarian regimes even, actually benefit a lot when people are hopeless.

4:01In fact, I think that a lot of propaganda is meant to make people hopeless because that negativity keeps people frozen in place. And that's exactly what those authoritarian powers often want.

4:13Jonquilyn Hill:I think people assume there's a naivety if you're not cynical or if you're not pessimistic. There's an old quote, always predict the worst and you'll be hailed as a prophet. You know, where I do think that there is an inherent sense that negativity and wisdom are the same thing. And there's evidence from psychology that bears this out. So research finds that 70 % of people believe that cynical folks who have a negative outlook on humanity are smarter than non-cynical individuals. And 85 % of people think that cynics are socially smarter, like they're better able to tell who's lying and who's telling the truth.

4:53I think that that's a stereotype in our culture, but it's also one that's wrong, right? So the data actually find that cynical people are not any smarter than non-cynics, and they're actually worse at knowing who's lying and who's telling the truth. So I think it's important to try to break that down when we can.

5:10Jonquilyn Hill:What do we know about people who are able to maintain being hopeful in dark times? What makes them able to do that? Well, let's again stipulate that these are not folks who think that the world is great. When I think about hopeful people, I think about activists. You know, was Nelson Mandela optimistic and thinking that everything was going to turn out great when he was in his jail cell? Hope is a stubborn, active sense of the world. It's an acknowledgment that things are not what we want now, but a sense that they could improve and that we have something to do about it. So hopeful people, as the science bears out, one, have the ability to envision that better future.

5:55Two, they have a will to pursue it, right? They have that grit and that sort of that passion to actually continue going for a goal, even if it's difficult. And third, they have something known as way power, which is that they're able to map a path between where they are and where they want to be. And oftentimes that way power, that sense that what I do makes a difference requires not being alone. So hopeful people often aren't hopeful just on, you know, as individuals. They find communities of people who want the same positive change that they do, and they work together towards creating that change.

6:38Jonquilyn Hill:You know, every week we ask people to call in. And when we ask people how they're cultivating optimism in their lives, I honestly thought I was like, oh, no, people aren't going to call. They won't have anything to say. Everything is bad, but, but I was wrong. I heard you guys ask how people are staying optimistic right now. For me, it's sitting down and putting pen to paper. I have faith where I believe that God's got my back. I go out to dinner with my friends for a night and I just feel like I've taken the biggest deep breath. If we're experiencing the world through our screens, it seems like first, everything is terrible.

7:17And two, everybody knows that everything is terrible. The funny thing is that when we return to our local communities, when we actually ask people about their lives, A, they're doing wonderful things, and you realize how excellent the average person is on a bunch of dimensions. And two, people are finding hope. They're finding reasons to be optimistic. I'm currently hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and something that has really shown me and given me hope in humanity is all of the trail angels making sure that hikers have water and food and are feeling taken care of. I go out, organize with my friends, get out in the community, just learn more about, you know, what my people need out here.

8:04For me, that was joining Roller Derby. I'm not the greatest at it, but I found community and it's a lot of fun. And I hope everybody out there can find their own local derby pack. You know, a great thing about human beings, in my opinion, is that we like each other more the closer we get to one another. So research finds, for instance, that most Americans do not think that most people can be trusted. We've become a very cynical nation. But if you ask people, what about the folks in your neighborhood? And this is not just your friends and family, but, you know, your grocer, your bus driver, your barber.

8:42People feel so much better about the folks that they actually encounter in real life.

8:47Jonquilyn Hill:Some of the other responses we got had to do with hobbies. I play guitar, play a lot of video games. I go to the gym. I cook occasionally. I've been doing a lot of knitting projects. I keep hope by going outside and gardening. It's so beautiful to see life come out of seemingly nothing. I remember that people really were trying all kinds of stuff at the height of the pandemic. And it seems like it's still the case. Like, I call 2026 the year of the hobby. Like, I don't know. I'm just going outside and trying things. What makes that such an effective strategy? Well, first, tell me about your 2026 hobbies.

9:30Which one has brought you the most joy?

9:32Jonquilyn Hill:I've gotten back into film photography. I used to do it in high school. and I just go shoot film all around the city. You know, my friends, their kids have a birthday party. I show up with my film camera. Cherry blossoms? Oh, I definitely have the camera for that. Just going on a little walk, camera everywhere. And do you find that using this film camera sounds really fun? Does it bring you a sense of hope or optimism to do this? Oh, yeah. Oh, well, first of all, you just look at the world a little bit differently. It's like, oh, look at that shadow. Look at that angle. What's the reflection off that building?

10:07Jonquilyn Hill:But also when you have a camera, especially a film camera, people love to stop and talk to you. Especially like older people, they're like, a film camera? I haven't seen that in so long. And then they just start chatting with you and you're like, wow, look at us chatting. I love that. And, you know, again, I love this idea of noticing more. You know, a lot of the data from my lab, from lots of other labs, suggests that, yes, you know, we don't want to gaslight people into ignoring the bad things in life. But a lot of us go around missing the good things in life. And so I think of cultivating hope as a practice of noticing, not a practice of ignoring the bad side, but a practice of balancing that with a sort of real attention to what is beautiful.

10:52And I think, you know, in general, hobbies are a chance for us to pay attention to things that we care about and often bring us, as has for you, in connection to people who turn out to be often pretty great.

11:07Jonquilyn Hill:Something that I feel like needs to be acknowledged is that this is not the only time in the world where life has been hard. Humanity has survived a lot, and our listeners called in and really reminded us of that. My grandparents were Black activists in New Orleans, Louisiana during the civil rights movement, and just seeing the things they had to go through and hearing their stories and seeing where life is now. Both of my grandparents survived and met in Auschwitz. I would ask them how they made it through. And they kind of gave like a very biblical but true answer. Hope. It's just the one thing nobody could take from you.

11:54Even as we see these same patterns of violence and patriarchy, you know, repeating fascism, like repeating themselves in awful, unimaginably terrible ways. I do think it's a useful exercise to look at the ways that we also are making progress in the same breath.

12:16Jonquilyn Hill:Is that an argument that resonates with you? Absolutely. One practice that I use is to think back to what life was like for my parents or for their parents, right? I mean, we've been through so much, and I'm not saying that everything will turn out well, but generally speaking, we are a resilient species, especially when we're able to come together.

12:43Jonquilyn Hill:So humans tend to be resilient. And when we focus that power on building something new, extraordinary things can happen. That's next.

13:03Jonquilyn Hill:Support for Explain It to Me comes from Starbucks. There's a palpable energy to storytelling, and it's an energy we harness to bring you a special series like this one. With that in mind, it's worth remembering the little things we do in community to energize ourselves, like sharing a cool, brightly flavored drink over conversation under the afternoon sun. It's a refreshing ritual that can be perfectly captured by the Starbucks new energy refresher. It comes in great flavors. Mango dragon fruit, strawberry acai, mango strawberry, plus a handful of tasty variations with lemonade or coconut milk like the pink energy drink.

13:39Jonquilyn Hill:The point is nobody is immune to a little slump in energy, especially in the afternoon. The science is clear on that. The key is remembering there's always a path forward to feeling renewed and re-energized. Try the all-new energy refreshers at Starbucks.

14:02Jonquilyn Hill:It's Explain It to Me. I'm JQ. Do you ever think about what life will be like a generation from now? Or maybe two or three generations? Ari Wallach does. He's host of the PBS documentary series A Brief History of the Future. And he's also a futurist, which is what exactly? So we don't predict what's going to happen. What we do is we study patterns over history, over culture, over ways that the world has been and potentially could be. And then we step back and we help people and institutions make choices within that matrix. Fundamentally, the role of a futurist, I believe, is to help us, the current generation, become great ancestors.

14:49My father was born in the 1920s in a small shtetl in Poland. And if you know your history, you know things didn't go well for him and his family by the time he was a teenager. He lost his mother and sister in Auschwitz. He eventually escaped the Jewish ghetto and joined the Jewish underground in the resistance. And from there became a Nazi hunter after the war and eventually made himself a citizen of Mexico, where he met my mom, who was a student of Buckminster Fuller. People say to me, I wonder what it would be like to be on a spaceship. And I say to you, you don't really realize what you're doing.

15:28Because everybody is an astronaut. You all live aboard a beautiful little spaceship called Earth. So I grew up in a home where on the one hand, my father had firsthand knowledge of what could go wrong. And my mother, as a student of Buckminster Fuller, who was also a futurist, was focused on what could go right. So what I was able to do, thankfully, is realize that we exist in that tension, that we can't be rainbows and unicorns about tomorrow, nor can we stick our head in the sand and say, it's just terrible and it's just going to happen, but that we actually have to do something. We're in what I call this intertidal, the old systems, the ways of doing things, the institutions that have really kind of held us together, especially in the West for the past couple of hundred years, are crumbling.

16:19And in that intertidal moment, we're seeking not just answers of what could be, but we're really trying to figure out what do we avoid? How do things go wrong and how do I avoid that? Now, that being said, that's not the way you actually want to run a planetary civilization. What you want to be asking yourself is, what if we got it right? What is it that we want to see actually manifest and happen. I mean that in terms of democracy, in terms of how we work, in terms of how we live, what we eat, how we educate, we have to start thinking about what it is that we want, not just what it is that we don't want.

16:56Jonquilyn Hill:There were times when Americans were more excited about the future, though, right? Like, what are a few moments in history where people were really feeling optimistic about where we're going? And what were they thinking about then? The thing that jumps out to me is the 1893 World's Columbia Exposition, the World's Fair in Chicago. We have to remember, this was the beginning of the turn of the century. No one had ever actually seen electricity. Maybe they'd heard about a light bulb or seen one, but you could actually walk into the Chicago World's Fair and see whole city blocks illuminated. There was this idea that there was a new era coming, that there was actually progress.

17:40And then fast forward 1939, the New York World's Fair. To see the exhibits of 58 nations, crowds pour in from subways, trains, buses and cars, half a million strong. The theme was the world of tomorrow. Hundreds of thousands of people visited the Futurama exhibit and they went on this fun little train where they would see the futures of work and of kitchens and home life and sports and you name it. The nation's foremost companies present the magic of today that paves the way for the miracles of tomorrow. Most recent was probably the space race in the 1960s. Dramatic strides by both sides in the space race give promise of major developments in man's efforts to actually send human explorers into the far reaches of the solar system.

18:25I mean, to be able to come together and go off planet again was a vision of what was possible.

18:29Jonquilyn Hill:If you look at what was going on in the world during those times, you know, I think, you know, in 1893, the country was going into severe economic depression. And in 1939, when there was the New York World's Fair, there was a world war going on. How were people able to stay optimistic during these times where it's like, no, there are actual crimes against humanity taking place? The upward trajectory of Homo sapiens on planet Earth has been just that, an upward trajectory. There has been no better time to be alive, as far as I'm concerned, in the past 50 ,000 years in this very moment. And you could say that moving back over the past several decades, all the way into, you know, even into the late 1930s.

19:18And the reason was that we had a shared visions of improvement. We saw that things would get better. You know, you visit New York City before the advent of the streetcar, and it was covered in horse manure, and all of a sudden that totally disappeared. So people had a real, true, visceral sense that things could move forward. It wasn't ignoring the reality, but it was seeing that there—and feeling in your daily life that there was a possibility of a better tomorrow.

19:44Jonquilyn Hill:Are there ways that being optimistic has tangible impacts on our present? Like, is this just about the future, or does this impact our now, too? Oh, look, when you're optimistic as an individual, you save more, you have better health, you make better decisions, whether you want to invest, what kind of relationships you want to have, what kind of jobs you're going to take, things that you're going to pursue. It's all embedded within this vision of what we call your future self or your future society. Societies that put forth a vision of who and what they want to be. more often than not, as individuals, they actually have healthier, more comfortable, more satisfied lives.

20:26Jonquilyn Hill:You talked to a ton of people for this documentary series that you did that aired on PBS. And I wonder, who's someone you spoke with who has a vision for the future you found really inspiring? I was fortunate to travel the world. And what I consistently found was not just great ideas about better tomorrows, but people who were willing to start, even at a small scale and eventually expanding, actually executing on those ideas. I met Boyden Slatt from the Ocean Cleanup. I was 16 years old. I went scuba diving in Greece and I was hoping to see all these beautiful things. Then I looked around me and I just saw a garbage dump.

21:07I just saw more plastic bags than fish. He's like, why don't we just take all the plastic out of the ocean? Everyone's like, you're nuts. you can't do that. Now, daily, they have these massive kind of drone barges that are sucking in plastic by the ton outside of river outlets and throughout the ocean. These are what you call pellets. And these are the building blocks for any new object. So you can just mold this into something new. And the idea is that we are producing durable, sustainable products out of this. And with that, help fund the cleanup. So it's, again, these individuals that have a shared sense of agency and a long-term mindset that kind of blew me away.