A lot of times we get too consumed with what will happen in the future that we tend to ignore the fact that there is no such time as ‘now’. Little things in life that we keep looking forward to, something that will happen in the future that will make life so much better. A simple event like meeting someone in the near future, watching a movie, a fun activity; all seem to have impacts on our present. Will they actually happen? Will they really make things any better than they are right now? Maybe, Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop us from thinking about them. That doesn’t divert our attention to the present where things may already be so great. We repeatedly put faith in the certainty of events that we don’t necessarily know will actually happen. We let the promise of a better future impact our present in only the way we want it to. We condition our brain to believe certain things that are going to happen will be good for us. That becomes the thing to look forward; something to live for in the ‘present’. We forget how we lack any real ability to predict the future. We remind ourselves of our knowledge of probability and chance and how we can quantify the likelihood of an event happening. We make ‘educated’ guesses but in reality all we’re thinking about is the good, and not so much the bad. Probability and certainty, usually don’t go well together; A fact we mostly tend to ignore.

So does that make humans optimists by nature? Not really. It just makes them hopeful. It is with hope every day that they continue their lives. They look forward to the good times or a ‘hope’ them ahead, and keep going! In reality, they just don’t have a choice to think otherwise.