In the months after his wife’s death from ovarian cancer, Sumit Paul-Choudhury found himself questioning what kind of person he was. “I was always vaguely aware I was an optimist, but it was more a fun quirk of my personality, rather than something central,” he reflects. “Then optimism helped me get through that experience, and the fact I decided to identify and act like an optimist helped me to be more optimistic and to direct my optimism.
“I thought I was a dyed-in-the-wool evidence-based rationalist, which I am. I had to reconcile that I was also a person who believed, without evidence, that things are going to improve.”
Believing there are better times and better possibilities ahead, even when there’s scant or no evidence, requires a leap of faith – sometimes informed, sometimes blind. But this kind of optimism, psychological, philosophical and practical, has been vital to human survival and progress. And, argues Paul-Choudhury – an astrophysicist-turned-journalist and former editor-in-chief of New Scientist magazine – in his new book The Bright Side, it’s essential to creating better futures for ourselves and for society.
