Cover Letter:
This paper was extremely hard, mentally, to finalize during this stay-at-home pandemic world that we are currently living in. There seems to be very little positive in this situation and the realistic approach is also pretty depressing. How am I supposed to write about actively trying to pursue this mindset when I, someone who has lived by this motto for all of high school, am defeated by this situation. I felt like a hypocrite reading and editing this. I think the important takeaway is that this is okay. Not everything is perfect. And sometimes, a lot of the time, things are out of our control. This mindset has helped me to generally lead a pretty stress free life over normal to moderate circumstances. Maybe this idea needs some more tweaking before it can conquer world altering events. But something that I brought up in the middle did seem to help when I thought about it closer: this is the best we got. I cannot imagine trying to tackle this with an ungrounded optimistic mindset and I don’t want to think about a negative mindset through this. And a kind of fourth one I didn’t cover in this paper: the evading tactic. That won’t work either. So maybe it will still take some more work, but I’m happy with what I’ve got now.
Realistic Optimism:
When did our stress levels rise higher than the importance of what we were stressing over? As a graduating high school senior, the last four years, and probably before then as well, have revolved around dates and deadlines, tests and projects, and overall stress. And these stress/worry levels are increasing (Bethune). One need only to walk down the hall to hear a student worrying about an upcoming test or assignment. This, however, is okay: some worry. While there is some difference between stress and worry -- worry happening in the mind and stress happening in the body -- in small, manageable doses they both can be beneficial. They can help sharpen the mind or help to draw awareness to a habit you need to break. But when stress and worry build up, we experience anxiety (Pattee). But in my experience, many high school students have a problem with too much worry and stress over schoolwork leading to anxiety that is both unnecessary and avoidable. The easiest way to avoid this undue worry is to simply not worry about it. But this cannot be done in a dismissive way, it must be done by changing to a new way of thinking, with a realistically optimistic mindset. Actively pursuing and establishing this new mindset is crucial for improving the mental health of students while maintaining the importance of learning material.
There are three well-established mindsets that people often feel the need to choose between to define their average way of looking at the world: optimism, pessimism, and realism. There is a quote from William Arthur Ward: “the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” This quote appears to be bashing optimism and pessimism while making realism shine. But what if these aren’t the only options? There are two sides to the argument on optimism, those for it and those against it, but what if they are talking about two different mindsets: unrealistic optimism versus realistic optimism? Realism itself is unsustainable as a pure mindset because it doesn’t take a stand on issues (Gabriel 181). It simply rolls with the punches; if someone works hard at this mindset, their mental health is not going to improve, they will just be going through the motions of everyday life, dealing with issues as they arise. Realism can be and often is viewed as autonomous, C.S. Jenkins wrote about realism and independence: “Realism is often defined as the view that truths or facts are mind-independent (they obtain independently of their being known, knowable, conceivable, or related to our mental lives)” (Jenkins 199). However, we determined this year that true autonomy is impossible, there are always interfering and pressing outside forces. Jenkins later goes on to agree with this in relation to realism. We will always interject our feelings on events and therefore, it is not truly mind-independent. There is no true realism without some form of intervention by our own memories and authorities.
Combined with the other two mindsets, however, in the positive and negative sides of realism, we now have four options that could potentially improve our mental health and our lives. Very clearly not all of them will do this. There are obvious negatives to unrealistic optimism: it doesn’t inspire work, it inspires blind faith in everything, it is ungrounded in reality and can lead to an imaginative, dream state existence where the real, harsh problems of the world don’t exist. And there are also obvious negatives to both combinations of pessimism. It is not sustainable and healthy to purposefully look at the negative side of life. Some people who believe themselves to live in the realist space are living only focusing on the negatives of society. Calling it realism, they are living realistic pessimism. This leaves one more combination: realistic optimism.
What if you were to expect not the winds to change, but the circumstances? Using this metaphor: a realistic optimist changes the sails and looks forward expectantly to the new future. But why is this necessary in our lives? It only seems like the relatively best option right now. Is it good enough simply by not being as bad or as negative as the previous three combinations? By definition, it only takes the best out of the two mindsets and they complement each other perfectly. With optimism, you are going to be looking for the positive both in each situation and within the idea of realism; with realism, the full scope of the problem will be revealed. Together, they work together to fully understand each situation and not simply push problems away because there isn’t a clear positive. They each cover the other’s weakness.
Unfortunately, from a school perspective, there is not a clear, practical, application for a positive outlook. No amount of positivity will spur a creative workaround to get out of an assignment. The best in this instance is typically: “the information will help you in college and to find future jobs;” this isn’t helpful. Here the benefit of this mindset only comes by actively working to see everything through both sides of it equally: searching hard for a positive while fully trying to understand the situation. And in this case, the positivity comes from not having the negative mindset. (Maybe it is good enough by simply being relatively better than the others.) The negative side to studying and taking a test, especially in an advanced or challenging class, is letting it consume all thoughts until it comes. Over-studying won’t cure this worry, and the worry might turn into trouble sleeping, or less energy. And this can then manifest itself into social interactions, to where even trying to hang out, you are thinking about this worry in the back of your head. This sometimes becomes the only conversation piece. There have been times where my friends worry so much that I become stressed about a test in a class that I don’t even take. This is the negative. Relative to this, the positive side is simply not taking this path. This mindset, actively avoiding this path, leads to studying and preparing, but actively focusing on not worrying about it. What will come will come, and due to the studying and preparing, the best that can happen will happen.
It is so easy to resolve to “simply not worry.” It is incredibly hard to focus on living in this way. High school is such a stressful place. Friends constantly talk about their classes and about their stresses, parents push for college decisions and for taking the most rigorous classes, and one-up culture dominates the social scene (Rosen). But not always positive one-ups like vacation spots or clothing, but more than often negative ones: “I only got five hours of sleep last night.” “Yeah, I was studying so hard I only slept for three.” It is sometimes more impressive to do decent work at the last minute than good work in a week. This new mindset has to take the place of all potentially negative aspects of work and life. It takes commitment to the idea of: “I have a test in a week, I am going to study, and I am going to be okay,” and even, “I really procrastinated on this assignment, and I have a two page paper due tomorrow. Instead of wasting half of my energy worrying about the work I have to do anyway, I will focus completely on getting it done to the best of my ability.”
This active pursuance of realistic optimism is the hardest part, but it is worth it because that will uncover the dual nature of this mindset: only by looking through this lens will the benefits of it become clear. Your mindset colors everything you see in its own color. A negative mindset will make even the optimistic viewpoints negative. A positive mindset will make the negative ones excusable. The benefits will only truly present themselves when looking at a realistically optimistic mindset with itself. By definition this lens will bring out the best in itself without clouding over any negative parts.
Realistic optimism is crucial for improving the mental health of students because it doesn’t contain the negatives of the other mindsets. Simply being better than the others is reason enough to implement this to see the effects. Personally, this mindset has helped me focus on the most important parts of school while understanding the true importance of everything assigned. Instead of complaining about busy work, do the work, and understand there is at least some reason why the teacher assigned it. High school is stressful enough without doubling the weight of all assignments by worrying about them without reason. Through working towards and within this mindset, it becomes apparent the meaningfulness of both assigned work and the time we have. Some work can now be understood as not worth worrying over, while the more important work can be understood as truly impactful, a difference indiscernible when simply worrying over everything, equally.
There are three well-established mindsets that people often feel the need to choose between to define their average way of looking at the world: optimism, pessimism, and realism. There is a quote from William Arthur Ward: “the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” This quote appears to be bashing optimism and pessimism while making realism shine. But what if these aren’t the only options? There are two sides to the argument on optimism, those for it and those against it, but what if they are talking about two different mindsets: unrealistic optimism versus realistic optimism? Realism itself is unsustainable as a pure mindset because it doesn’t take a stand on issues (Gabriel 181). It simply rolls with the punches; if someone works hard at this mindset, their mental health is not going to improve, they will just be going through the motions of everyday life, dealing with issues as they arise. Realism can be and often is viewed as autonomous, C.S. Jenkins wrote about realism and independence: “Realism is often defined as the view that truths or facts are mind-independent (they obtain independently of their being known, knowable, conceivable, or related to our mental lives)” (Jenkins 199). However, we determined this year that true autonomy is impossible, there are always interfering and pressing outside forces. Jenkins later goes on to agree with this in relation to realism. We will always interject our feelings on events and therefore, it is not truly mind-independent. There is no true realism without some form of intervention by our own memories and authorities.
Combined with the other two mindsets, however, in the positive and negative sides of realism, we now have four options that could potentially improve our mental health and our lives. Very clearly not all of them will do this. There are obvious negatives to unrealistic optimism: it doesn’t inspire work, it inspires blind faith in everything, it is ungrounded in reality and can lead to an imaginative, dream state existence where the real, harsh problems of the world don’t exist. And there are also obvious negatives to both combinations of pessimism. It is not sustainable and healthy to purposefully look at the negative side of life. Some people who believe themselves to live in the realist space are living only focusing on the negatives of society. Calling it realism, they are living realistic pessimism. This leaves one more combination: realistic optimism.
What if you were to expect not the winds to change, but the circumstances? Using this metaphor: a realistic optimist changes the sails and looks forward expectantly to the new future. But why is this necessary in our lives? It only seems like the relatively best option right now. Is it good enough simply by not being as bad or as negative as the previous three combinations? By definition, it only takes the best out of the two mindsets and they complement each other perfectly. With optimism, you are going to be looking for the positive both in each situation and within the idea of realism; with realism, the full scope of the problem will be revealed. Together, they work together to fully understand each situation and not simply push problems away because there isn’t a clear positive. They each cover the other’s weakness.
Unfortunately, from a school perspective, there is not a clear, practical, application for a positive outlook. No amount of positivity will spur a creative workaround to get out of an assignment. The best in this instance is typically: “the information will help you in college and to find future jobs;” this isn’t helpful. Here the benefit of this mindset only comes by actively working to see everything through both sides of it equally: searching hard for a positive while fully trying to understand the situation. And in this case, the positivity comes from not having the negative mindset. (Maybe it is good enough by simply being relatively better than the others.) The negative side to studying and taking a test, especially in an advanced or challenging class, is letting it consume all thoughts until it comes. Over-studying won’t cure this worry, and the worry might turn into trouble sleeping, or less energy. And this can then manifest itself into social interactions, to where even trying to hang out, you are thinking about this worry in the back of your head. This sometimes becomes the only conversation piece. There have been times where my friends worry so much that I become stressed about a test in a class that I don’t even take. This is the negative. Relative to this, the positive side is simply not taking this path. This mindset, actively avoiding this path, leads to studying and preparing, but actively focusing on not worrying about it. What will come will come, and due to the studying and preparing, the best that can happen will happen.
It is so easy to resolve to “simply not worry.” It is incredibly hard to focus on living in this way. High school is such a stressful place. Friends constantly talk about their classes and about their stresses, parents push for college decisions and for taking the most rigorous classes, and one-up culture dominates the social scene (Rosen). But not always positive one-ups like vacation spots or clothing, but more than often negative ones: “I only got five hours of sleep last night.” “Yeah, I was studying so hard I only slept for three.” It is sometimes more impressive to do decent work at the last minute than good work in a week. This new mindset has to take the place of all potentially negative aspects of work and life. It takes commitment to the idea of: “I have a test in a week, I am going to study, and I am going to be okay,” and even, “I really procrastinated on this assignment, and I have a two page paper due tomorrow. Instead of wasting half of my energy worrying about the work I have to do anyway, I will focus completely on getting it done to the best of my ability.”
This active pursuance of realistic optimism is the hardest part, but it is worth it because that will uncover the dual nature of this mindset: only by looking through this lens will the benefits of it become clear. Your mindset colors everything you see in its own color. A negative mindset will make even the optimistic viewpoints negative. A positive mindset will make the negative ones excusable. The benefits will only truly present themselves when looking at a realistically optimistic mindset with itself. By definition this lens will bring out the best in itself without clouding over any negative parts.
Realistic optimism is crucial for improving the mental health of students because it doesn’t contain the negatives of the other mindsets. Simply being better than the others is reason enough to implement this to see the effects. Personally, this mindset has helped me focus on the most important parts of school while understanding the true importance of everything assigned. Instead of complaining about busy work, do the work, and understand there is at least some reason why the teacher assigned it. High school is stressful enough without doubling the weight of all assignments by worrying about them without reason. Through working towards and within this mindset, it becomes apparent the meaningfulness of both assigned work and the time we have. Some work can now be understood as not worth worrying over, while the more important work can be understood as truly impactful, a difference indiscernible when simply worrying over everything, equally.
Video of Paper:
Contextualization:
This school year, in AP Lit, we have been learning how to critically think and read above all else. While this isn’t specifically geared towards the AP National Exam, the skills we’ve learned are arguably more important than teaching to a test. We read selected pieces of A.O. Scott’s “Better Living Through Criticism,” Warren Berger’s “A More Beautiful Question,” and Stephen Greenblatt’s “Renaissance Self Fashioning,” over the summer to prepare for this class. Diving deeper into these texts in the first semester laid the groundwork into the critical thinking that would show us the unifying theme of the major texts in the course. In December and the next semester we read multiple creation stories: different translations of “Metamorphoses”, the first chapters of Genesis, and “Paradise Lost” by Milton. To finish we read “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. The major pieces we devoted most of our class time towards are Scott’s, Greenblatt’s, Milton’s and Shelley’s. Through much discussion, we learned about the ideas of agency, our own power to act, and the powers and authorities that govern us, ideas brought up in each of these texts. But they didn’t just tell us these ideas.
Each author showed us through the text what they were hoping we would take away. They each provided guidelines to how to see and use this knowledge by using it themselves in the writing. And only by examining the writing choices the authors made could we come to the true conclusion of their purpose. For example, Greenblatt wrote about the process of self-fashioning, of society, authorities and aliens, and all of these powers coming together in unison and opposition to change someone. Through reading this, we came to the conclusion, that was supported by the other texts, that autonomous agency, the idea that we can act truly alone and without any of these outside forces is not real. This is a hopeless situation that is really depressing to discover. Yet Greenblatt, based on his foreword written twenty years later, didn’t want us to take this lesson away. He wanted us to focus on the power that we have despite all of these outside forces. The power to choose which authority to follow and which ones to try to defend against. He wanted us to take hope out of a hopeless situation. And this is the basis for my Capstone project. For this project, I discovered the ideas that I have been wrestling with for most of high school fall directly under this umbrella. This mindset that I am proposing deletes the hopelessness of a situation, and only by focusing on the positive will the true benefits of this mindset be revealed.
Each author showed us through the text what they were hoping we would take away. They each provided guidelines to how to see and use this knowledge by using it themselves in the writing. And only by examining the writing choices the authors made could we come to the true conclusion of their purpose. For example, Greenblatt wrote about the process of self-fashioning, of society, authorities and aliens, and all of these powers coming together in unison and opposition to change someone. Through reading this, we came to the conclusion, that was supported by the other texts, that autonomous agency, the idea that we can act truly alone and without any of these outside forces is not real. This is a hopeless situation that is really depressing to discover. Yet Greenblatt, based on his foreword written twenty years later, didn’t want us to take this lesson away. He wanted us to focus on the power that we have despite all of these outside forces. The power to choose which authority to follow and which ones to try to defend against. He wanted us to take hope out of a hopeless situation. And this is the basis for my Capstone project. For this project, I discovered the ideas that I have been wrestling with for most of high school fall directly under this umbrella. This mindset that I am proposing deletes the hopelessness of a situation, and only by focusing on the positive will the true benefits of this mindset be revealed.
Works Cited:
Bethune, Sophie. “American Psychological Association Survey Shows Teen Stress Rivals That of Adults.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 2014, www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/02/teen-stress.
Gabriel, Markus. “Neutral Realism.” The Monist, vol. 98, no. 2, 2015, pp. 181–196. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26370746. Accessed 16 May 2020.
Jenkins, C. S. “Realism and Independence.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 3, 2005, pp. 199. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20010201. Accessed 16 May 2020.
Pattee, Emma. “The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/smarter-living/the-difference-between-worry-stress-and-anxiety.html.
Rosen, Dan. “The 'One-Up' Culture: Why 'Being Better' Is Hurting Our Potential.” The Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 17 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/the-one-up-culture.
Gabriel, Markus. “Neutral Realism.” The Monist, vol. 98, no. 2, 2015, pp. 181–196. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26370746. Accessed 16 May 2020.
Jenkins, C. S. “Realism and Independence.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 3, 2005, pp. 199. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20010201. Accessed 16 May 2020.
Pattee, Emma. “The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/smarter-living/the-difference-between-worry-stress-and-anxiety.html.
Rosen, Dan. “The 'One-Up' Culture: Why 'Being Better' Is Hurting Our Potential.” The Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 17 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/the-one-up-culture.
Project Narrative:
Introduction:
For my senior capstone project I want to explore the benefits of living with an optimistic-realistic mindset. This is as straightforward as it sounds: how can we better ourselves by actively thinking about our life and the world around us through this lens of looking on the bright side of a situation but remaining completely grounded in reality? This is the overarching question of the project, but the central question I would like to focus on most is: what is at stake if we don’t learn this? Is it our mental health, our relationships, good or bad work/study habits…? I plan on researching the psychological side and the actual scientific benefits of this mindset, but also the practical side, of how it can be applied to situations we might not necessarily immediately think through in this way.
Subject Matter Experts:
For my senior capstone project I want to explore the benefits of living with an optimistic-realistic mindset. This is as straightforward as it sounds: how can we better ourselves by actively thinking about our life and the world around us through this lens of looking on the bright side of a situation but remaining completely grounded in reality? This is the overarching question of the project, but the central question I would like to focus on most is: what is at stake if we don’t learn this? Is it our mental health, our relationships, good or bad work/study habits…? I plan on researching the psychological side and the actual scientific benefits of this mindset, but also the practical side, of how it can be applied to situations we might not necessarily immediately think through in this way.
Subject Matter Experts:
- Ms. McCrary and Mr. Foreman (internal): Both of these people have backgrounds in sociology/psychology and are interacting with students with a range of different mindsets on a daily basis. It would be great to talk to them to see how if they have ever noticed a distinct trait or average stress level (subjective) for each of the mindsets a student might have.
- Mr. McCandless (external): He used to teach psychology and has a lot of life experience so it would be interesting to talk to him about this.
- Sarena Martínez (external): I found a paper by a now graduate of Vanderbilt on the matter of realistic vs unrealistic optimism. She seems very accomplished (based on LinkedIn) but she is young so maybe or maybe not an external subject matter expert.
- The only big places where my personal calendar differs from the overall calendar is:
- Research Components due: try to have this done by Monday, Feb 10 because of baseball later in the week and final week tests.
- Finish Thesis and Outline during Spring Break
- Process Reflection 2 ⇒ Weekend of March 14 and 15
- Get as much of the next steps done as possible the week of March 22 - 28
- Carol Dweck: a current psychologist who has done kind of recent and groundbreaking work on the psychology of people's motivations, personality, and development and how it affects them and their success.
- There are more combinations of optimism, pessimism and realism than I have ever thought about before. There is realistic pessimism and unrealistic pessimism. There is realistic optimism and unrealistic optimism.
- I believe that our stress lives and our mental well-being is at stake if we fail to see the world as the malleable reality that it is.
- I believe that as we begin to understand the agency that we have, especially focusing on when we actually have it, this mindset begins to emerge as the only sustainable and logical option
- There are so many ways to look at something. Example from Greenblatt: I can’t handle the fact that there is no autonomous agency. Since there is no autonomous agency, what’s the point to everything that I’m doing? Even with all of these factors, I have agency! How can I deal with making these decisions because we are saying they are super important? Who cares about these other factors, I have agency and I can make my own decisions.
- Our understanding of agency can affect our mindset and willingness to accept this mindset. This can then affect our demeanor and attitude in life
- Our understanding of agency can affect our mindset and willingness to accept this mindset. This can then affect our demeanor and attitude in life
- Optimism is one of the hardest things to learn. When someone points out (usually seemingly arbitrary and almost meaningless) something optimistic, it is easy to agree with them but it is so hard to genuinely say something optimistic that you believe in without seeming fake to others or yourself (at least in my experience).
Drafts:
Draft 2:
When did our stress levels rise higher than the importance of what we were stressing over? As a graduating high school senior, the last four years, and probably before then as well, has revolved around dates and deadlines, tests and projects, and overall stress. One need only to walk down the hall to hear a student worrying about an upcoming test or assignment. This is okay, some worry. While there is some difference between stress and worry --worry happening in the mind and stress happening in the body, in small, manageable doses -- they both can be beneficial. They can help sharpen the mind or help to draw awareness to a habit you need to break. But when stress and worry build up, we experience anxiety. Once again, if we learn how to manage and control these levels, it can be beneficial. But in my experience, many high school students have a problem with too much worry and stress over schoolwork. There are many possible plans of attack to fix this: approach it from the schoolwork side and change the amount of work, approach from the psychological side and provide specific services for students to pay for. However, this next solution will have to come from the student: work to change your mindset about schoolwork and assessments. Actively pursuing and establishing a realistically optimistic mindset is crucial for improving the mental health of students.
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Cover Letter:For this draft, from peer review, I added some context to some ideas, fixed up a lot of errors here and there, and tried to make sure the ideas I am presenting are as clear as planned. There are still some places where it takes some critical thinking to understand, but, just like in class, this is intentional. To fully utilize this mindset and understand why it is important, this critical thinking through this new lens is vital.
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Optimism often gets looked down upon because it is not always perceived as sustainable, healthy, or grounded in reality. There are three well-known mindsets that people often choose between: optimism, pessimism, and realism. There is a quote from William Arthur Ward: “the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” This quote appears to be bashing optimism and pessimism while making realism shine. But what if these aren’t the only options? There are two sides to the argument on optimism, those for it and those against it, but what if they are talking about two different mindsets: unrealistic optimism versus realistic optimism? Realism is unsustainable as a pure mindset because it doesn’t take a stand on issues. It simply rolls with the punches and if someone works hard at this mindset, their mental health is not going to improve, they will just be going through the motions of everyday life, dealing with issues as they arise. But combined with the other two mindsets in the positive and negative of realism, and now we have four options that could potentially, and hopefully improve our mental health and improve our lives. However, there are clear negatives to unrealistic optimism: it doesn’t inspire work, it inspires blind faith in everything, it is ungrounded in reality and can lead to an imaginative, dream state existence where the real, harsh problems of the world don’t exist. And there are obvious negatives to both combinations of pessimism. It is not sustainable and healthy to purposefully look at the negative side of life. Some people who believe themselves to live in the realist space are living only focusing on the negatives of society. Calling it realism, they are living realistic pessimism. This leaves one more combination: realistic optimism.
What if you were to expect not the winds to change, but the circumstances? Using this metaphor: a realistic optimist changes the sails and looks forward expectantly to the new future. But why is this necessary in our lives? It only seems like the relatively best option right now. But, by definition, it only takes the best out of the two mindsets. With optimism, you are going to be looking for the positive in each situation, but, with realism, you will work to fully understand each situation and not simply push problems because there isn’t a clear positive. Unfortunately, from a school perspective, there is not a lot of leeway when it comes to taking a test. There is no creative workaround to get out of an assignment, and aside from unhelpful remarks, (“the information will help you in college and in future jobs”) there isn’t really a positive side. But part of actively working towards this mindset is searching hard for a positive. Here, this comes from understanding the negative side. The relief comes because this mindset is the relatively best option. The negative side to studying and taking a test, especially in an advanced or challenging class, is to let it consume all thoughts until it comes. The studying doesn’t cure your worry, and the worry turns into trouble sleeping, or less energy than average. This sometimes becomes the only conversation piece too. There have been times where my friends are worrying so much that I am worried about a test in a class that I don’t even take. This is the negative. Now imagine simply not taking this path. This leads to studying, preparing, but actively focusing on not worrying about it. What will come will come, and due to the studying and preparing, the best that can happen will happen.
It is so easy to resolve to “simply not worry.” It is incredibly hard to focus on living in this way. High school is such a stressful place. Friends constantly talk about their classes and about their stresses, parents push for college decisions and for taking the most rigorous classes for the best future, and one-up culture dominates the social scene. But not always positive one-ups like vacation spots or clothing, but more than often negative ones: “I only got five hours of sleep last night.” “Yeah, I was studying so hard I only slept for three.” It is sometimes more impressive to do decent work at the last minute than good work for a week. This new mindset has to take the place of all potentially negative aspects of work and life. It takes commitment to the idea of: “I have a test in a week, I am going to study, and I am going to be okay,” and even, “I really procrastinated on this assignment, and I have a two page paper due tomorrow. Instead of wasting half of my energy worrying about the work I have to do anyway, I will focus completely on getting it done to the best of my ability.” This active pursuance of realistic optimism is the hardest part, but it is worth it because that will uncover the dual nature of this mindset: only by looking through this lens will the benefits of it become clear. Your mindset colors everything you see in its own color. A negative mindset will make even the optimistic viewpoints negative. A positive mindset will make the negative ones excusable. The benefits will only truly present themselves when looking at a realistically optimistic mindset with itself. This lens will bring out the best in this mindset without clouding over any negative parts.
Realistic optimism is crucial for improving the mental health of students because it prohibits the negatives from the other mindsets. Simply being better than the others is reason enough to implement this to see the effects. Personally, this mindset has helped me focus on the most important parts of school while understanding the true importance of everything assigned. Instead of complaining about busy work, do the work, and understand there is at least some reason why the teacher assigned it. High school is stressful enough without doubling the weight of all assignments by worrying about them without reason. Through working towards and within this mindset, it becomes apparent the meaningfulness of both assigned work and the time we have. Some work can now be understood as not worth worrying over, while the more important ones can be understood as truly impactful, a difference indiscernible when simply worrying over everything, equally.
What if you were to expect not the winds to change, but the circumstances? Using this metaphor: a realistic optimist changes the sails and looks forward expectantly to the new future. But why is this necessary in our lives? It only seems like the relatively best option right now. But, by definition, it only takes the best out of the two mindsets. With optimism, you are going to be looking for the positive in each situation, but, with realism, you will work to fully understand each situation and not simply push problems because there isn’t a clear positive. Unfortunately, from a school perspective, there is not a lot of leeway when it comes to taking a test. There is no creative workaround to get out of an assignment, and aside from unhelpful remarks, (“the information will help you in college and in future jobs”) there isn’t really a positive side. But part of actively working towards this mindset is searching hard for a positive. Here, this comes from understanding the negative side. The relief comes because this mindset is the relatively best option. The negative side to studying and taking a test, especially in an advanced or challenging class, is to let it consume all thoughts until it comes. The studying doesn’t cure your worry, and the worry turns into trouble sleeping, or less energy than average. This sometimes becomes the only conversation piece too. There have been times where my friends are worrying so much that I am worried about a test in a class that I don’t even take. This is the negative. Now imagine simply not taking this path. This leads to studying, preparing, but actively focusing on not worrying about it. What will come will come, and due to the studying and preparing, the best that can happen will happen.
It is so easy to resolve to “simply not worry.” It is incredibly hard to focus on living in this way. High school is such a stressful place. Friends constantly talk about their classes and about their stresses, parents push for college decisions and for taking the most rigorous classes for the best future, and one-up culture dominates the social scene. But not always positive one-ups like vacation spots or clothing, but more than often negative ones: “I only got five hours of sleep last night.” “Yeah, I was studying so hard I only slept for three.” It is sometimes more impressive to do decent work at the last minute than good work for a week. This new mindset has to take the place of all potentially negative aspects of work and life. It takes commitment to the idea of: “I have a test in a week, I am going to study, and I am going to be okay,” and even, “I really procrastinated on this assignment, and I have a two page paper due tomorrow. Instead of wasting half of my energy worrying about the work I have to do anyway, I will focus completely on getting it done to the best of my ability.” This active pursuance of realistic optimism is the hardest part, but it is worth it because that will uncover the dual nature of this mindset: only by looking through this lens will the benefits of it become clear. Your mindset colors everything you see in its own color. A negative mindset will make even the optimistic viewpoints negative. A positive mindset will make the negative ones excusable. The benefits will only truly present themselves when looking at a realistically optimistic mindset with itself. This lens will bring out the best in this mindset without clouding over any negative parts.
Realistic optimism is crucial for improving the mental health of students because it prohibits the negatives from the other mindsets. Simply being better than the others is reason enough to implement this to see the effects. Personally, this mindset has helped me focus on the most important parts of school while understanding the true importance of everything assigned. Instead of complaining about busy work, do the work, and understand there is at least some reason why the teacher assigned it. High school is stressful enough without doubling the weight of all assignments by worrying about them without reason. Through working towards and within this mindset, it becomes apparent the meaningfulness of both assigned work and the time we have. Some work can now be understood as not worth worrying over, while the more important ones can be understood as truly impactful, a difference indiscernible when simply worrying over everything, equally.
Draft 1:
Cover Letter:My idea for this project spawned from this idea that I’ve had and have been expanding upon for most of high school. I didn’t have a name for it and didn’t specifically think about it either. Watching and listening to all of my friends worry about every small assignment, I decided to try something: not stress, and almost not care. Not worrying about every test and mistake and busywork assignment, I noticed that I could actually focus on the assignments that I was interested in. When we read and dissected Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self Fashioning this year, I realized that this mindset could have a better form. Instead of simply not worrying, I could actively try to take hope out of a seemingly hopeless situation. When we got to pick our Capstone topics, this immediately jumped back in my mind and I wanted to dive deeper into this idea and really create a healthy mindset that would both help me and others.
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When did our stress levels rise higher than the importance of what we were stressing over? As a high school senior, most of my life has been revolving around dates and deadlines, tests and projects, and overall stress, for at least the last four years, and probably back before as well. One need only to walk down the hall to hear a student talking about an upcoming assignment that has them worried. This is okay, some worry. While there is some difference between stress and worry, worry happening in the mind and stress happening in the body, in small, manageable doses, they both can be beneficial. They can help sharpen the mind or help to draw awareness to a habit you need to break. But when they build up, we experience anxiety. Once again, if we learn how to manage and control these levels, sometimes this is beneficial. But in my experience, many high schoolers have a problem with too much worry and stress over schoolwork. There are many possible plans of attack to fix this: approach it from the schoolwork side and change the amount of work, approach from the psychological side and provide specific services for students to pay for. However, this solution to this problem will have to come from the student: work to change your mindset about schoolwork and assessments. Actively pursuing and establishing a realistically optimistic mindset is crucial for improving the mental health of students.
Optimism often gets looked down upon because it is not always perceived as sustainable, healthy, or grounded in reality. There are three well-known mindsets that people often choose between: optimism, pessimism, and realism. There is a quote from William Arthur Ward: “the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” This quote appears to be bashing optimism and pessimism while making realism shine. But what if these aren’t the only options? There are two sides to the argument on optimism, those for it and those against it, but what if they are talking about two different mindsets: unrealistic optimism versus realistic optimism? Realism is unsustainable as a pure mindset because it doesn’t take a stand on issues. It simply rolls with the punches and if someone works hard at this mindset, their mental health is not going to improve, they will just be going through the motions of everyday life, dealing with issues as they arise. But combined with the other two mindsets in the positive and negative of realism, and now we have four options that could potentially, and hopefully improve our mental health and improve our lives. However, there are clear negatives to unrealistic optimism: it doesn’t inspire work, it inspires blind faith in everything, it is ungrounded in reality and can lead to an imaginative, dream state existence where the real, harsh problems of the world don’t exist. And there are obvious negatives to both combinations of pessimism. It is not sustainable and healthy to purposefully look at the negative side of life. Some people who believe themselves to live in the realist space are living only focusing on the negatives of society. Calling it realism, they are living realistic pessimism. This leaves one more combination: realistic optimism. What if you were to expect not the winds to change, but the circumstances? Using this metaphor: a realistic optimist changes the sails and looks forward expectantly to the new future. But why is this necessary in our lives? It only seems like the relatively best option right now. But, by definition, it only takes the best out of the two mindsets. With optimism, you are going to be looking for the positive in each situation, but, with realism, you will work to fully understand each situation and not simply push problems because there isn’t a clear positive. How does this work in school? There is not a lot of leeway when it comes to taking a test, that’s true. There is no creative workaround to get out of it and aside from unhelpful remarks, “the information will help you in college and in future jobs,” there isn’t really a positive side. But part of actively working towards this mindset is searching hard for a positive. Here, this comes from understanding the negative side. The relief comes because it is the relatively best option. The negative side to studying and taking a test, especially in an advanced or challenging class, is to let it consume all thoughts until it comes. The studying doesn’t become enough and the worry turns into trouble sleeping, or less energy than average. This sometimes becomes the only conversation piece too. There have been times where my friends are worrying so much that I am worried about a test in a class that I don’t even take. This is the negative. Now imagine simply not taking this path. This leads to studying, preparing, but actively focusing on not worrying about it. What will come will come and due to the studying and preparing, the best that will happen will happen. It is so easy to resolve to “simply not worry.” It is incredibly hard to focus on achieving this goal. High school is such a stressful place. Friends are constantly talking about their classes and about what is stressing them, parents are pushing about plans for college and taking the most rigorous classes for the best future, and one-up culture is very dominant. But not always positive one-ups like vacation spots or clothing, but more than often negative ones: “I only got five hours of sleep last night.” “Yeah, I was studying so hard I only slept for three.” It is sometimes more impressive to do decent work at the last minute than good work for a week. This mindset has to take the place of all potentially negative aspects of work and life. It takes commitment to the idea of: “I have a test in a week, I am going to study and I am going to be okay” and even “I really procrastinated on this assignment and I have a two page paper due tomorrow. Instead of worrying about it with half of my energy, and have to do it anyway, I am going to focus completely on getting it done to the best of my ability.” This active pursuance of this goal is the hardest part, but it is worth it because that will uncover the dual nature of this mindset: the benefits are most clear when looking upon this idea with this lens. When looking at this with a different mindset, the other mindset will cloud the benefits. Realistic optimism is crucial for improving the mental health of students because it prohibits the negatives from the other mindsets. Simply being better than the others is reason enough to implement this to see the effects. Personally, this mindset has helped me focus on the most important parts of school while understanding the importance of doing everything. Instead of complaining about busy work, do the work, and understand there is at least some reason why the teacher assigned it. High school is stressful enough without adding doubling the weight of all assignments by worrying about them without reason. |
Process Reflections:
3/20/20:
I have a lot of the pieces of my written component, I simply need to put them together in the way that I want to, described in my outline. For this, I need to spend time with each idea and make sure to find the right words for each section and find the best way to piece each separate idea that I want to cover together. With my peer editing partners, one of the most important things that I learned was that the “realistically” part is getting overlooked. This was only with the outlines, theses and overarching ideas, so it wasn’t paired with paragraphs discussing the full benefit of “realistic” optimism versus just optimism and especially unrealistic optimism. I think that I got caught up with capturing many different aspects of this idea. My working thesis has four parts that I need to make sure to hit in the paper while I think I should be focusing more on the main point. These intentionally worded parts include “crucial,” “actively pursuing,” “mental and overall health,” “high school students.” While I think it is important for all of these aspects of this overarching idea to be covered, I’m worried that I am spreading the idea too thin and not making sure to drive home the point of realistic optimism. As for experience, I could have a comparison after putting them through a stressful situation simulation, of the different mindsets. I think it is important for them to see the benefits of thinking realistically and optimistically at the same time. However, I think the most important takeaway for people who come to my presentation is not why it is the best, I think, deep down, everyone knows it is the most logical and beneficial mindset, but rather how they can implement it in their lives. I think if I can come up with something for them to do to show them that it is possible to think like this, it would be more beneficial and provide them with a better takeaway.
2/9/20:
To start the research of my project I have decided to look into the definition of optimism, realism, and hope in order to get a foundation and to see where these definitions lead me. I immediately noticed that the ideas of optimism and hope are inseparably intertwined. Realism adds in the grounding and combining all three ideas together, there becomes the mindset of being willing to work for the good (both physically and mentally) in a real situation. Looking into the origin, or at least the history of optimism, I noticed the name Leibniz, which we learned in math. He developed a logical argument for why this world, believing in the existence of God, is the best possible world. Then I looked into the opposing idea and read a summary of Voltaire’s “Candide.” I think it would be rewarding to look into these opposing ideas during my research and to possibly add God as a factor into my questions. I know that Hope is a very Christian theme, though not solely exclusive to Christians, and it would be interesting to look into some of the history there, careful not to get too distracted in this work and forget the main objective of my project. Internally, with this new information, I plan to talk to Ms. McCrary and Dr. Holt. A discussion with Ms. McCrary would be helpful for the modern, practical application of the idea of realistic optimism I hope to develop, as well as for the observation of how the stage is set in our high school lives for a new mindset to alleviate some of our neverending stress. My first question to Ms. McCrary would be: “how needlessly stressed do you think students are?” My most important question to her would be: “how hard would it be for students to actively try to change their mindset to school and to life in general?” Dr. Holt could help me with the literary connections between the ideas of hope and optimism both as individual words with their meanings but also in the context of past, and maybe current) texts, such as Leibniz’s approach to optimism, Candide (there has to be a reason that this version of optimism was rejected), and Renaissance Self-Fashioning. I would first ask Dr. Holt: “where/how often do you see connections between hope and realistic optimism in literature?” But my most important question would be: “are these stories/ideas more compelling because they can cause a positive change in the reader’s reality?/do you think these ideas can cause a positive change in the reader’s reality?” The next question that will guide my research and development on my topic are probably along the lines of “why is hope so important in our lives” (which sounds like a simple answer: “because it has to be,” but the more I think about it, the more I realize that is both the best and the worst answer and I want to find better reasoning.) as well as “what are we going to lose if we don’t find the hope we need?” Really, I just need to do more broad research and deeper thinking into the foundational concepts of hope and optimism than I originally thought.