Inside The SuperOptimist Guide to Unconventional Living, you’ll find an eclectic assortment of experiments and activities to help you challenge the steady drip-drip-drip of pre-programmed thought that humans have developed over the eons. With estimates now placing 89% of our brain function as habitual reactions to circumstance — checking our phones, working at repetitive tasks, […]
While positivity is a the central objective of SuperOptimism, it’s often by saying “no” that we can achieve some of life’s most empowering results. Consider all the insidious little things that waste time, do us no good, or ruin our chances for a better outcome. These are habits we are socially conditioned to perform, yet […]
How many times do human beings set themselves up to fail? One universal example is the classic “Change on a Dime” plan. “I’m going to quit smoking today.” “I’m going to lose 25 pounds in a week.” “I’m going to write a best-selling suspense novel, sell it for $300,000, pay off my credit card debt, […]
Opening Day is normally associated with the beginning of the major league baseball season, bringing a sense of hope that at the very least, sub-freezing temperatures are behind us and spring has finally arrived. But we see no reason why the pastime should only be relegated to balls and strikes. Here are some suggestions for […]
In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. — Miguel de Cervantes That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another. — Adlai E. Stevenson Stay hungry. Stay foolish. — Steve Jobs When someone calls you a fool, do you take offense? Or […]
Based on the latest murderous rampage by the Russian impaler-in-chief, we wondered if humans are unique in their lust for killing their own kind. After all, what kind of animals are foolish enough to lay waste to those who resemble them? The good news (or bad, depending how you view it) is that people are […]
Jeff Bezos is a failure. There, we’ve said it. This may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, where the amount of money a person has is the measurement by which people are judged. But anyone building a 411-foot yacht that burns 132 gallons of marine diesel an hour has obviously got issues (though apparently […]
What day of the year combines haggis, whisky and poetry? Why, it’s “Burns Night,” the January 25th celebration of the poet Robert Burns’ birth. Many mark the occasion by attending a Burns’ Supper, a night that includes a tasty meal, performances of Burns’ work and a speech in honor of the great Scottish Bard. To […]
One could argue that Martin Luther King was the most important political activist in modern American history. He was certainly the most hated man in America during the 1960s, for railing against the inequities suffered by African-Americans at the hands of whites, advocating for a guaranteed basic income for all people (60 years before Andrew […]
The noted neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandian calculated that the number of possible brain states exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe. For context, a piece of your brain the size of a grain of sand would contain one hundred thousand neurons, two million axons, and one billion synapses, all talking to each other. So […]