How Tragic Optimism Benefits You

Tragic optimism is the belief you can still maintain a happy, contented, and hopeful life in the midst of tragedy. Rather than running from negative emotions and experiences, tragic optimists embrace them as opportunities to gain a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

These ideas descend from the philosophy and experiences of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (sometimes written as Victor Frankl), the pioneer of logotherapy and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. Though the Austrian psychologist spent years in Nazi concentration camps, he endured untold amounts of suffering by clinging to a personal sense of meaning and hope.

Tragic optimism encourages holistic acceptance of life, while toxic positivity insists you stuff down any feelings of pain or sadness. Here are just a few of the areas in which you can contrast tragic optimism against toxic positivity:

• Acceptance vs. avoidance: Human beings have to fight hard against their natural impulse to seek out pleasure and avoid pain at all costs. Tragic optimism discourages this impulse, while toxic positivity encourages it. The latter inevitably becomes exhausting, as you’ll never be able to ignore what psychologist Viktor Frankl called the “tragic triad” of pain, guilt, and death. Learning to accept these things helps you mature, while ignoring them stifles your growth.
• Authenticity vs. inaccuracy: Tragic optimism prioritizes authenticity over an inaccurate self-image. Toxic positivity focuses on human achievement and happiness to the exclusion of any other aspect of life. This unrealistic approach will render you less able to embrace your true self, warts and all.
• Depth vs. surface: By taking a holistic approach to mental health, tragic optimists aim to go deep rather than stay at the surface level. With toxic positivity, you ignore negative emotions and experiences, as well as pretend it’s somehow normal to be happy all the time, no matter the circumstances. Tragic optimism rejects this in favor of exploring pain in search of meaning and hope rather than pleasure.

Tragic optimism helps you grow as a person in numerous ways. Life comes with tragedy built into it; even if you live a very charmed life, you’ll still get sick, lose loved ones, experience disappointments, and someday die. On top of that, there are wars, pandemics, economic downturns, and other societal ills that can affect you.

When you stop running from these things and accept them as a natural part of life, you can begin to take responsible action to improve your mental health. Hard times might never become easy, but they do morph into valuable teachers when you embrace them as inevitable. With the right perspective, both the good and bad periods will make you more compassionate, grateful, humble, and resilient than ever.

When you approach life with openness and realism, you have a far greater chance of maintaining an abiding sense of equanimity and hope. Keep these tips in mind as you seek to become a tragic optimist:

• Learn from pain. Traumatic events cause sorrow, but they can also make you stronger in unique and powerful ways. When you go through something hard for the first time, it might feel overwhelming and impossible. Still, with each experience, you become a little stronger and better able to withstand the challenges of life.
• Practice gratitude. Tragic optimism means recognizing both good times and bad times are opportunities for gratefulness. The impermanence of human life is a double-edged sword—while hard times can’t last forever, neither can good ones. To achieve self-transcendence and true contentment, realize both positive and negative events can add up to a good life. Be grateful for what either type of experience can teach you.
• Prepare for ups and downs. Human existence is synonymous with transitoriness. There’ll be many ups and downs on your journey from birth to death. Give yourself grace if you’re struggling through hard times. No one can feel hopeful and happy all the time. Practice mindfulness and self-compassion as you move through times of abundance and periods of pain.
• Seek meaning. The discovery of meaning is what makes post-traumatic growth possible. If you can latch onto a personal meaning of life, you can remain humble in happy times and hopeful in hard ones. Toxic positivity tells you to seek out ways to mount an intervention into any negative experiences or feelings. Tragic optimism insists mining these for meaning can prove more rewarding than you ever would’ve expected.
• Talk with a qualified professional. Seek out a therapist to explore the idea of tragic optimism. Consider looking for someone who specializes in logotherapy (the type of existential psychotherapy espoused by Viktor Frankl). Listen to mental health podcasts about how you can become more resilient. If you find you’re still struggling, a psychiatry professional might be able to prescribe medication to help you through a hard time.

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