The Probability Trap
Pessimism has its advantages. It prepares us for the worst. But it also has its limitations. It binds us to that which we deem to be “realistic”. How many times have we found ourselves saying that something is “not realistic”?
Now, what do we actually mean when we say a plan is “not realistic”?
To be “realistic” in our world is to expect only that which has been done before to succeed. We conceive of what is possible by looking at how probable it is. The more common something is, the more realistic it is. For example, it is realistic to aim to be good at something, but unrealistic to be the best at it. Why is this the case? Because the probability of being the best at something is far smaller than the probability of being good at something.
We often cringe at stories with happy endings. They are hard to digest. They are labelled as stupid and stacked away in the category of unrealistic stories with feel-good silly endings. We do this because they seem alien to the stories we have seen unfold before us, unreal to our reality which we desperately want to hang on to. In a way, reality is our comfort zone. Anything which threatens our idea of reality is immediately rejected.
Fairy tale, on the other hand, is mankind’s idea of hope. It is the tale which man has always sought but seldom found. And yet it has been found though not nearly as often as we’d like. The rags to riches stories which we are all so familiar with sound dreamy but are also a part of our reality.
A reasonable approach to breaching the limits of what is possible would be to start in our minds with the boldest idea we can think of and then work our way down by critically analysing each option. Pessimism does have its place but more so when it is deployed along with optimism, rather than instead of it. Bold ideas analysed ruthlessly can be the ideal mix, as long as we take care to at least consider the bold ideas without dismissing them as unrealistic propositions at once.
