I'm trying to broaden the scope of positive psychology well beyond the smiley face. Happiness is just one-fifth of what human beings choose to do.
Optimistic people generally feel that good things will last a long time and will have a beneficial effect on everything they do. And they think that bad things are isolated: They won't last too long and won't affect other parts of life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Optimistic individuals believe that positive experiences are long-lasting and impactful, while negative experiences are temporary and isolated.
This quote by Martin Seligman highlights the mindset of optimistic people, who tend to view life through a lens that favors positivity. They expect that good experiences will have a lasting impact on their lives and the lives of others, while they perceive negative experiences as fleeting and unlikely to affect other areas of their lives. This perspective not only shapes their emotional responses but also influences their actions and overall approach to challenges.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to encourage resilience in the face of adversity.
More from Martin Seligman
All quotes →One of my worries about America is the epidemic of depression we've been in. One of the possibilities about that is that the 'I' gets bigger and bigger, and the 'we' gets smaller and smaller.
The dirty little secret of both clinical psychology and biological psychiatry is that they have completely given up on the notion of cure.
The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.
I believe psychology has done very well in working out how to understand and treat disease. But I think that is literally half-baked. If all you do is work to fix problems, to alleviate suffering, then by definition you are working to get people to zero, to neutral.
The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
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The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances.
Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your emancipation. You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields - discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West - superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.