Amy (and guests) on optimism

In 2025, I am (optimistically) hoping to become an optimist

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of what I hope to be a regular reflection on a topic I’ve been discussing with guests. This is my first feature behind a paywall. But don’t panic, if you haven’t already upgraded, you can get a free month here! I’ve kept paid subscriptions low to make this newsletter accessible. They’re just £3.50 ($4.30) a month which is roughly the cost of one jägerbomb, or £25 ($31) for a year which would get you around 2.5 sips of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. I don’t know exactly what you guys will be ringing in the New Year with tomorrow and I’m trying to offer something for everyone.

When I started interviewing lefties for this newsletter, I decided to let the conversation go wherever the guests led us while also asking a few of the same questions each week. One question I’ve surprised myself by asking over and over again is whether they feel optimistic about the future. It’s a part of the interview I’ve found myself most looking forward to, which is how I realised that it’s become a preoccupation of mine.

This month, I’m writing about optimism. We’ll cover my own struggles with it, recent guests’ attitudes, and how you can become more optimistic yourself.

Quick warning: this piece starts in a dark spot but (most appropriately!) ends on a brighter note. Let’s go.

Right before my father died (I did warn you) he wrote me a letter. If I’d hoped for something sanguine about my upcoming life without him, I was disappointed. In the throws of a terminal illness with poisonous chemo rattling through his body, Dad’s tone was pretty dour. The point he made most emphatically was that while my mother and brother had the gift of optimism, he and I shared pessimistic tendencies. I did not like that diagnosis at all. Although, credit where credit’s due, Dad and I were spot on because the worst-case scenario did come true and he did die. The only thing worse than being a pessimist is being a pessimist who’s proven right.

All along, my mother and brother had been a little more hopeful. After I’d given up and succumbed to bleak acceptance, my mother was still preparing food my father would never eat while my brother ran down hospital corridors relaying new ideas to patient doctors. Given that nothing any of us felt had the slightest effect on the outcome, I wish I had experienced the lightness of a bit more hope. More than that, I wish my dad had too.

After the detection of pessimistic tendencies, what’s the prognosis? Is it possible to become less pessimistic or even recover and transform into a full-blown optimist?

Gráinne Maguire — whose interview comes out this week — regards optimism as something you can and must work to have more of. She believes that on the left, it’s our responsibility to be optimistic. After all, if we are fighting to make the world a better place, we have to first believe that a better world is possible.

So how do we become more optimistic? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Here are some optimism-increasing ideas I intend to practice next year.