Anecdotally, Ive been very fortunate to have a positive brain chemistry. When bad things have happened, my brain pretty much doesn't worry on them. Eventually things work out (or something good eventually happens) and I get through the bad times.
There is no way to explain or describe this positive brain chemistry in a way that anyone can believe. But since I was a kid, my parents have been worried that Im too happy as they know dissatisfaction is what drives people to achieve. They would say things like "your only problem is you are too happy".
I do annoying things to avoid bad things from happening in the future. If one is very optimistic, then one would not believe the bad things would happen and thus one would not be very motivated to do the annoying things.
For example do you wear a seat belt or brush your teeth? I know the questions may sound a bit offensive but I'm honestly interested in hearing people's motivations.
I do, because wearing a seatbelt is not that annoying. It just doesn't bother me. Being optimistic doesnt mean that I don't think bad things will happen to me, just that it will be ok, or not be ok. Either way there is always something positive to come out of every situation.
There are some paths that I would prefer, but even the bad paths have lots of positives.
During the 2010 recession we had a client that owed us 700K and I could tell from reading the 10Q was on the verge of bankruptcy. I had my team work very hard to collect our money. We got it and when they went bankrupt we survived while a lot of our peers went out of business. It isnt that I believed we would be ok, but that if we had not been able to collect the money and went out of business that would have been an incredible learning experience and something good would have come out of it.
Every outcome is not equally desired, I would rather be in business than not be in business. But not being in business, losing your home, becoming bankrupt etc. just doesnt stress me out. I have lived on 10K/year before and been incredibly happy. Even when I was digging change out of the couch to afford to buy food.
I guess one could map it very crudely so that the pessimist sees the alternatives as A = -10 and B = -8 and the optimist sees them as A = +4 and B = +6. Both estimate pairs will lead to the same action but the latter person will have a more positive outlook.
Does it ever bother you when people find that youre "too happy" which people might take it to mean that no outcome to any given event, can really displease you?
Have you read up on what such a "condition" - if it can be called that - is called medically? Do others share it as well?
Medicine and science, being subject to the limitations of a falsifiable-evidence style of thinking as well as technical limitations, are understandably way behind the curve in this sort of thing.
From the reading I've done, the underlying physiological explanation for "the enlightened state" seems to be downgraded activity in the Default Mode Network of the brain, and evidence suggests this can be achieved in a variety of ways.
Meditation, prayer, and psychedelics often seem to put the rationalist-oriented mind into a sort of defensive, hyper-skeptical mode, but that the same phenomenon can also be observed in stroke patients hopefully makes such minds more open to considering the idea.
the way people see it is that I dont react to bad situations. I have been called "stone cold". I have sometimes wondered if it is related to sociopathy. I am a giving person and would rather give than receive, so am not very selfish. However, bad things just dont bother me because there is always something positive that comes out of everything.
When my wife had an aortic dissection and had a high chance of dying, people had a hard time understanding how I could be so calm and not be stressed. It wasnt that I was sure she was going to make it, just that no matter the outcome I would still find happiness.
Sincere question here: what makes you certain that you would have found happiness?
I guess the fundamental difference between your way of thinking and most peoples' is that you seem to be absolutely convinced that happiness exists and is continuously experienced regardless of the state of reality. Therefore, regardless of what happens, there will be some form of happiness and you will experience it.
I'm in awe of this, because my personal view is that happiness is a fleeting chaotic state that mostly has no easily measurable probability of emerging, despite my attempts to grasp the shape of the distribution and its evolution in response to my actions. While I would consider myself not to be pessimistic, I definitely tend to have extremely rare encounters with what one would call happiness, which seems to be so starkly different from your life experience.
There's a book by Tony Hsieh (Zappos founder) called Delivering Happiness.
Near the end, he talks about three types of "happiness."
The first is pleasure. It's from food, fun, or other external experiences. While it can bring temporary happiness, you will always be looking for the next fix.
The second is happiness from passion, such as a hobby or working at your startup. You can go for years without success and still feel happy. However eventually you'll need some type of progress to keep going.
The third type is happiness from purpose. Think of it as working towards something bigger than yourself. This type of happiness can last a lifetime, even if all you do is sacrifice for it.
happiness cant come from external factors. Happiness comes from within. I have come to believe that it has to be fortunate brain chemistry. Events dont make me happy, Im already happy and optimistic. Some events are easier to find the good in of course.
There is a downside which is that I dont get that happy over good events, I also dont get sad over bad events. I dont need anything to be happy so when good things happen, they are nice, but simply not necessary. Overall though I feel very fortunate, satisfied, optimistic, and happy with life.
What if pessimists are less likely to engage in self-preserving or self-improving behaviour (because why bother), creating a self-sustaining negative feedback loop?
If you stress out mice even their grand children will also be stressed even if you remove any stressors from them? Essentially, this area of research is extremely complicated.
There is no way to explain or describe this positive brain chemistry in a way that anyone can believe. But since I was a kid, my parents have been worried that Im too happy as they know dissatisfaction is what drives people to achieve. They would say things like "your only problem is you are too happy".
I havent lived to 85 yet though, so who knows.