The world is awash with negative news and pessimism. It’s hard to find a positive news headline. There are a few reasons for this. One is that bad news sells. It preys on our psychology – our brains are more attuned to negative news because evolutionarily we have to pay attention to threats which might get us killed. It’s called the negativity bias, just one of our many biases.

A second reason is that, in the words of Morgan Housel, progress happens too slowly to notice while setbacks happen too quickly to overlook. There are many overnight tragedies and perhaps no overnight miracles. The constant barrage of news, particularly over the past few years – a pandemic, a horrific war – can lead us to think that the world is falling apart, that the apocalypse is coming. The data tells us something completely different. We humans have made some extraordinary strides in the last decades. That’s not to say there aren’t still problems. I never want to diminish what hopelessness and despair some people in the world are currently experiencing, but to quote Max Roser: “The world is much better. The world is awful. The world can be much better. All three statements are true.” He explains how it’s easier to scare people than to instil them with confidence.

Be confident. On almost every metric the world is getting better for most people most of the time. We have moved millions of people out of poverty and given millions of people access to clean drinking water (there is still work to be done). Improvements in sanitation and giant leaps forward in medicine mean that we are living much longer lives. Since 1990, we have halved childhood mortality, literacy rates continue to increase, and more children than ever have access to education. In the US, less people are dying from motor accidents, from homicide, from commercial aviation accidents, and from heart disease than ever before. Violence is declining across the world (we are more aware of the violence that does occur but that doesn’t mean it is on the rise) and societies are becoming more democratic, tolerant, and free.

It’s one thing to understand the data but another to actually feel optimistic about the future. Jane McGonigal, a Futurist, gives some advice on how to cultivate optimism or realistic hope, as she calls it. She explains, “Realistic hope is having a balanced mindset, where you are both aware of the risks and threats that it makes sense to worry about and prepare ourselves for, but also of all the new technologies, the new policy ideas, the new solutions, social movements, all the positive stuff that could make a better future or help us avoid these risks.”

Think about a problem that you are worried about – a problem that makes you pessimistic about the future. Perhaps it’s climate change. Instead of just worrying about it, research the solutions that are in progress. Just Google ‘solutions for climate change’. Fill your brain with the pathways forward, whilst also holding in mind the risks and threats. The key is that we find balance in our minds and don’t become bogged down in the doom and gloom.

Here’s another way of looking at it: instead of pondering whether the glass is half empty or half full, what if we take Johan Norberg’s advice (author of the book Progress – Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future) and ask the question, “What if the glass itself tends to get bigger and bigger over time?” He writes, “Things might not be perfect, but there’s certainly a lot more water to go around today than there was yesterday.”