The Neutral Realist and The Faithful Optimist – Part 2

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The Neutral Realist and The Faithful Optimist

In the first post of this series, we explored the postures of pessimism and optimism, now we will explore how you can leverage these to your advantage in life…

Grounding and Pivoting

When asked if we are an optimist or a pessimist, we have a tendency to think of this as a binary choice of opposites. Think of this choice being like flipping a coin. Now also think back to the metaphor of life being a game much like balancing on a wheel…

A coin once stood on its side becomes a wheel, and herein you will discover the posture of the neutral realist.

The neutral realist is a posture in alignment with a zen mindset giving a “suchness” to their outlook. You could say it is someone that just has no emotional attachment to the outcome and is accepting of the present.

Emotions and the Game

So, is emotional attachment a condition of these postures?

Yes, because emotions derive from perceived loss or gain of value, and optimism/pessimism or good/bad are tantamount to loss or gain. So, emotions will play a significant part when we stray from the middle.

The Start Point for the Game

We all have our own default for starting the game, but in my experience if we aspire to achieve something, (meaning we are looking to attain or gain an outcome) we are best to have a baseline internal posture of the neutral realist to promote non attachment to the outcome and enable objective critical thinking.

The Journey and the Pivot

Despite embarking as a neutral realist, we must afford ourselves the ability to nimbly pivot as needed. Each of the postures has their use, some more so than others…

We can use the pessimistic realist and the faithful pessimist to identify pitfalls and risks while then swinging back to the optimistic realist to develop strategies to address these risks and landing on the faithful optimist to inspire ourselves and others about the opportunity.

All this pivoting and swinging is merely the neutral realist playing the game of life.

We are safe to linger in the optimistic realist and faithful optimist postures as these both inspire and motivate while encouraging energetic unfolding in the direction of our desired outcome. Any lingering in the pessimistic realist or faithful pessimist depletes our energy and resourcefulness.

We see what we choose to focus on.

If we focus too much on the hazards, we feed them more energy and move towards them.

Irrational and delusional postures represent a break from reality in either direction so any lingering in these spaces should ideally be avoided to prevent wasting time however, what is delusional to one may be real to another and reality is a very subjective thing. Use your own judgement here.

That being said though, by thinking that something is real we then make it real so do not constrain yourself with your goals and allow the delusional optimist time to play out every now and then.

Just because you cannot see the path, does not mean it is not there.

The faithful optimist is beautifully complimentary posture for the neutral realist in that its resourceful nature helps to kindle motivation. Really though, if we are honest, we know not what is good or bad, so consistently adopting the posture of the neutral realist is where we want to be.

Nope, it is not as exciting and drama filled as the other postures, and yes, it does not conform to societies definition of what a “great leader” should be, but it is the natural way which then enables you to embrace all that is to come.

A merry dance between the neutral realist and the faithful optimist with a sprinkling of the other postures to cultivate perspectives is what I have found to be the most effective in life.

Benefits and Practical Applications

This tool could easily have been included in the introspection toolkit as it is as much about understanding your own defaults and preferences as it is about cultivating a mindset which helps you push forward and effect change.

Once you know your defaults, you can then develop strategies to lead yourself in a given situation and move in to a more resourceful posture at the appropriate times.

Developing an appreciation of the other postures allows you to then consciously utilise these for the benefits they bring, rather than unconsciously slipping in to them and experiencing some of the pitfalls.

The key benefit of this tool is that by building your awareness of this optionality, you will have a more adaptable skillset available to face in to the challenges you experience on the mountain pathway of life.

Much like developing personal integrity which centres around building evidence to strengthen your faith in the power of honesty, taking your new awareness of these postures and then embodying it through action builds concrete evidence of your ability to cope in the face of adversity.

This evidence then builds your own faith in yourself and your ability to prosper. You deepen your self-trust and as such your self-esteem.

This is the power of the positive feedback loop that occurs when you project energy and optimism.

Linking back to the principle of Prioritising Increasing Vitality…

In life…

the more you give the more you get.

So be realistic when it comes to managing your expectations and emotions but be optimistic and bold when it comes to setting your aspirations and having faith in your ability to make them manifest.