A mentalist’s guide to being happy

> we had one of the most productive working relationships I've ever had

Finding a dynamic like this is a treasure.

My version of it was working with someone who had an inclination to solve all problems on the "algorithmic level" so to speak. Every time we worked on a feature, no matter how big, he would start with the hard CS problems and never really leave that head space. I thought of it as a "bottom up" approach. I on the other hand always took the "top down" approach and focused most of my efforts on APIs and architecture.

In his view, if you don't correctly solve the "real problem" (the hard CS problem) then everything else will fall part. If you base your architecture on the wrong solution then your layers of abstraction won't make any sense.

In my view, you should take the naive approach with the CS problem and focus mostly on the interface and system level architecture. If the interface and architecture are a mess, your application is going to be a buggy mess everywhere else too (death by a thousand cuts).

At first working together was so painful! We argued about everything. Worse, we'd be arguing about completely different things because our points of view were so different!

As soon as we recognized our differences we became a well oiled machine. A new project came in, he focused in on the CS problem, I focused on the architecture, and we'd (usually painlessly) merge our solutions.

The balance was even useful when we worked on separate projects. I knew that if I had a very narrow complex problem then I could come to him for a brilliant solution. He knew that if he got stuck trying to design a system with lots of moving parts that I'd offer a solid robust and fault tolerant systems level solution.

Ah, I miss it.

Another side effect of optimism that you didn't mention is that it makes it far easier to fall for bad tooling, libraries and patterns. I find most devs default approach to new stuff is wildly optimistic ("X will solve our problem perfectly", "X is popular so it must be good") and only positive outcomes are really considered ("We need to use X, Y and Z to avoid falling behind").

There's a lack of skepticism in general when it comes to tooling. Every one of those points is void of information without context because they each have a pessimistic counterpart that could be equally true. "X will introduce more technical debt than the problem it solves would", "X solves too broad of a problem and will bog us down with a huge API surface area we don't need", "X, Y and Z will provide negative value and we will miss an opportunity to outskill our competition", etc.

A lot of people, even senior staff, seem to forget that their job is about weighing pros and cons, or costs and benefits. In a lot of work places, mentioning the costs is seen as pessimistic or defeatist. You can see the imbalance by looking at the kind of language that's in vogue. I have a fair sort of a repertoire for accusing someone of being too skeptical of tooling ("reinventing the wheel", "why don't we just build it in assembly?", "10,000 people starred it on GitHub for a reason"), but I find it much harder to come up with opposing examples. The ones that are used aren't as widespread, and are more used as attributes of a codebase rather than as an assessment of someone's approach ("overengineered", "npm salad", "wrong abstractions" etc).

Love your post. On a guttural level-- At my last employer, I was known for rigorously exploring failure scenarios of our products and demanding they be mitigated.

After years someone asked why I was "so negative" and I said, I'm not negative, I'm, "planning for success."

>>mind blown<<

The Nokia CEO, Risto Siilasmaa describes "Paranoid Optimism" as being prepare mentally for the most negative outcomes, and at the same time, be enthusiastic about the most positive outcomes.

I'm a fairly optimistic person and I run into the missed deadlines issue with anything non-work related with some regularity. I underestimate the amount of time something will take me or overestimate my ability to start the task.

At work, basically, if there is a monetary value attached to the task, I have no issue. I've tried to analyze this but it seems to come down to things that I don't really HAVE to do will get pushed because I'm optimistic they will work out, as they have in the past, and if they don't then there is no real consequence. Those that are work-related have a direct consequence, less income, so they feel more critical. I'm not a developer so it's easier for me to draw a line from my work to monetary value but this may be a perspective to bring up if you are working with a similar personality type in the future.

Nice. It's a good co-founder relationship too. I'm super optimistic and my co-founder is pretty skeptical, which is definitely a beautiful balance.

We bought some property 3 years ago and there were no fireflies (Southern United States). We don't spray and have only mowed pastures, fence lines, etc. 3 years in and the fireflies are everywhere...you look out into the fields at night and see the yellow winking on and off. It is encouraging and comforting to see nature return. :)

I agree, I think our culture has a far bigger problem with relentless cynicism, pessimism, and negativity than it does relentless optimism.

Have you tried instagram? It seems like rule numero uno for instagram influencers is relentless positivity

You don't seem to be engaging with the point of the article. Optimism sets us up for disappointment. Accepting that bad things will inevitably happen, and being able to find joy in the good things even so, is exactly what Brown is advocating.

My rule is: -If you come to me with negativity, you better have solutions even if the solution means pivoting. No one are here to make a perfect product, they are here to provide value.

> The thing about optimism is that if you believe there is a solution, you'll keep working until you find it. If you're pessimistic, you're more likely to give up if there solution isn't obvious. Successful people are often optimistic because it's useful.

By now many in the HN crowd have likely spotted the survivorship bias here. Sometimes optimistic people will keep working toward a solution to a problem until they find it, even if no actual solution can ever exist. Those are the optimistic failures you never hear about.

Likewise, sometimes pessimists are rightfully pessimistic about something that has no solution, and end up moving on much sooner to something better. You rarely hear about that either.

It doesn’t matter whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, what’s important is to be optimistic or pessimistic for the correct reasons.

It's a balance.

How many stories have we seen of failed startups after years of optimism? Sometimes the cost of that optimism for the founder was disturbingly high.

I have wasted multiple years trying to find solutions to software problems (e.g. when working with third party systems like browsers) that either were not solvable or that I lacked the skills to solve. I have had some wins too, but often I should have given up far earlier...

Giving up is better than people give it credit for. You can waste a lot of time on hopeless solutions. Knowing when to give up and try something else, something that's a better use of your time, is valuable. There's nothing wrong with giving up when something's hard so long as you don't stop working entirely. There's a healthy way to be pessimistic and an unhealthy way to be optimistic.

Yep. Some call the affliction "being a fool," but there is nuance in whether the cognitive dissonance is dishonest about things one can reasonably attempt to change or not seeing things far beyond anyone's power.

It's literally in the exact same book that he writes that those who lost hope died first. Hope is what keeps us going.

It probably depends on your situation. Most of life isn't the literal Holocaust.

Wait, I thought stoicism was all the rage these days. Especially in the Valley.

> I seriously doubt it'll get any traction in the current climate.

We shall see.

Agreed. One translation I have read is "You are entitled to your actions but not the results". I find that a great philosophy.

Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain >> As introduced by Shakti Gawain to more than seven million readers worldwide, creative visualization is the art of using mental imagery and affirmation to produce positive changes in your life.

The article explicitly calls out The Secret specifically.

In fact there is even a relation to the current president:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/20736/Trump-White-House-Self...

"In the president’s biography and business career, the role of positive thinking is hiding in plain sight. From childhood on, Trump worshipped in the temple of the movement’s prophet, Norman Vincent Peale: Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church. Indeed, Peale presided over Trump’s first wedding in 1977. Trump’s father was a die-hard adherent of Peale’s preachments, as is his daughter Ivanka, who wrote in her 2009 self-help tract, The Trump Card, that “perception is more important than reality” and you shouldn’t “go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.”"

"Peale’s midcentury self-help bible, The Power of Positive Thinking, is, at its core, a distillation of the message of the Christian faith into a series of achievement-minded axioms. “Picturize, prayerize, actualize” was Peale’s mantra, and he applied this simple formula to every facet of the believer’s life—but most especially to the sphere of material advancement, which was the surest sign of divine favor in the hermetic social world of Pealeism."

"The Power of Positive Thinking remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks and helped launch the modern self-help industry; more than five million copies remain in print today. Peale’s gospel became the success creed for a newly corporatized and prosperous American social order. "