There are glimmers of hope in all that doom. On the way, you might discover Big Something Else. Did you hear of the Big Crunch and/or the Big Rip? Which one is more likely? If you are not sure, you got a lovely material to work with for the rest of your life. I should add that extra learning can actually boost optimism. You can be aware of the doom, and still enjoy your existence! This does not stop me from having great fun while writing these words with rock-solid conviction of being right (see why I am always right) My opus vitae may turn out useless in a few decades. I am aware that the second law of thermodynamics implies the universe will likely end, and that the probability of me being alive in 50 years is nearly zero.
If you do not believe it is possible, you may never get there. If you throw away the myth of unrealistic optimism, you will make your first step towards a better future. Pessimism is particularly harmful in that it limits action, and action is necessary for trajectory correction. It is the limits on freedom and the hierarchy of value that keeps conditioning the mind in ways that favor low levels of happiness. What makes people unhappy or pessimistic is the systematic injury to the reward system incurred as a result of the way we engineered our society. If you believe that a child or a dog are happy because they know little of the world, you deprive yourself of the awareness that high contentment is the norm. Contentment drives behaviors and has been welcome by the evolution with open arms. This is the baseline of contentment for the brain. If you look at a young dog or a child, you will usually notice a great deal of happy behaviors. This myth needs to be busted because if you believe it, it hurts both you and me. Allegedly, the optimist does not understand the threats. Many pessimists claim that optimists are optimistic because they have lost the connection with reality.
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