There’s a common Buddhist parable that goes something like this:
A farmer is walking home to the village and he crosses a forest. Suddenly, he’s hit in the side by an arrow. He cripples over, his mind racing with worrisome questions. Who shot this arrow? Who has wished harm upon him? What is he going to do?

As he sits there, worrying about what has happened, he gets hit with a second, sharper arrow. When he finally makes it to the village, he tells the monk his story. The monk listens, and replies to him that the second arrow was fired by the farmer himself.

In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.

Whether or not Buddhism is the faith you practice, there’s something valuable to be gained from this tale: oftentimes it is our perceptions, not reality, that determine the negativity we feel in our lives. In the present day, especially for people like high schoolers, who are concerned for the future that lies ahead of them, a large focus is placed on the way things are and the way things can be.

With this focus often comes worry and pessimism.

Personally, I’ve been an optimist for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been skeptical of those who talk about the good old days and the way things were before, and those who are quick to assume things are doing poorly.

I want to show you today that many of the things you believe about the world — the things that weigh you down and make the future seem dark — may not be as dire as they seem. I’ll explore why it often can feel like everything is spiraling downward, and in doing so, hopefully leave you with a sense of hope for the world we live in.

Oftentimes, people confuse pessimism with realism. Have you ever told somebody to stop being so negative, and they respond that they’re “just being realistic”? Not only is this false, but it also paints a false picture of optimism as being something only naive and ignorant people can truly have.

However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. More often, it is optimism — not pessimism — that reflects the world more clearly.

Humans are historically bad at perceiving the actual conditions on a global or national scale. For example, perceptions of the economy are often much worse than reality, and other statistics — such as whether crime is going up or down or the murder rates in their country — show a similar disconnect between perception and reality.

This means we often err on the side of pessimism and think things are worse than they actually are.

Scary World Syndrome causes us to adopt this view of the world that doesn’t match up with reality. Negativity bias is prominent in traditional media and even more so online: news posts with negative content were found to be shared nearly twice as often as positive content.

How can you blame people for being pessimistic when they are literally often surrounded by the negatives, and not the equally truthful positives?

Not only this, but humans are predisposed to react to negative information more than positive information. Back when we were cavemen, it helped us to survive not to focus on the warmth of the sun, but the impending danger of the tiger that was hunting us.

This has followed us to the present day: studies have found that humans have stronger physiological responses to negativity than positivity. We have a very natural tendency to highlight the downsides of the situations we’re in.

We’re wired to fear the tiger, not appreciate the sunshine.

This tendency can lead to the feeling that the world is slowly declining when it is coupled with our other tendency to glorify the past.

A study that conducted interviews of people on vacation at varied intervals showed that directly after, people would mostly talk about the negatives: the flight was delayed, they got sunburnt, things went wrong with the hotel room.

A couple of months afterward, however, their story flipped: the ocean was beautiful, it was nice to be out in the sun, it was a scenic location.

We focus on the bad in the moment, where it can affect us. But in memory, the bad doesn’t hurt us anymore and it becomes easier to reminisce on what was. In turn, this causes it to feel like the present is not what the past was; it’s filled with all the annoyances that, though they were still present in our past, we no longer associate with our memories.

So the present always feels worse, even when it’s not.

All of this is to say that while focusing on the bad might seem more beneficial, it isn’t necessary — and it might not even be true, in your personal life and on a global scale.

But explaining why pessimism is bad isn’t exactly explaining why optimism is good.

If all you do is recognize this implicit bias and work to go against it by remaining critical of the world-spiraling narrative and looking for the full picture, you will see benefits — not only in your outlook, but also in your health.

A correlation between mental health and optimism has been scientifically proven to exist.

I’m not telling you just to “look on the bright side” or ignore the unfortunate things that are happening in our world today. Undeniably, there are things happening all around that could be better.

But take a moment to realize just how incredible life is right now. If you take a look back at the average man 500 years ago, we are — almost all of us — kings and queens compared to him. We’re kings even compared to kings from back then. So it’s important, because we do have the privilege, to acknowledge the good.

Optimism isn’t about denial. It’s about perspective.

If we do acknowledge this, and make sure to remember it periodically, what’s going to happen? What can come out of a better outlook on the present and future?

Your perceptions of the world will most likely be more accurate. If you can acknowledge that negativity spreads more, but that this does not mean that it is any more true than positivity, you can have a much more grounded approach to the consumption of the information around you.

This way, negativity is less likely to have the staying power that it often does.

In the end, the only way good things will happen is if you, and others like you, look for the good. We can’t function as a world if we expect and think we know that things are getting worse.

As a group, we must look forward to things and believe that things can and will get better.

That’s why optimism is the better option, beyond just correcting our views of the world.

Although pessimism seems like the more grounded option, it is not only less accurate, but also oftentimes harder to do. Optimism has a number of benefits and can improve your perception of the world and your mental health.

In the future, when you are inevitably presented with less-than-ideal results, take a step back.

Think of the farmer, and the parable of the two arrows.
Remember that things are better than they might seem.