If you think you can't, you won't

If you think you can't, you won't Posted: 17 Feb 2009 01:53 PM CST If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that a couple of weeks ago, I attended the TED 2009 conference in California. It was the best conference I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of conferences. TED is about sharing ideas that can change the world. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It started in 1984 and has evolved into a large group of people who want to add value to our world. From the TED website: "We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building a clearing house that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other." One of the speakers was Bill Gates. I was very impressed with his presentation. So much so that I've included it here. Gates posed two big questions about the future of our world. In talking about malaria, he asked "How do you stop a deadly disease that's spread by mosuitoes?" He also asks "How do you make a teacher great?" These are two big issues for Gates and his foundation, and he talked about some ideas for eradicating the problems of disease and lack of education. He also kept saying the same phrase, which struck me as equally as the big questions did. "I'm an optimist." Now, I don't know if we as a planet will beat malaria. I don't know if we'll ever get our arms around our education system and make it great. What I DO know is that if we think we can't, we won't. Once you believe you are going to fail, you have failed. Yet it's pessimism that seems to be the prevailing sentiment these days. Pessimism sells. Outrageous pessimism sales outrageously. I thought of Gates's "optimist" statement today because I read a headline on a finance blog (I won't name it and give it any more attention) that repeatedly sells sensationalist headlines. Today's was something like "America's standard of living is permanently changed." In the past on this site, which attracts guest commenters who actually try to outdo each other's outrageous "gloom and doom" statements, I have seen views that are even mildly optimistic about the economy become the object of scorn and ridicule on the blog. When did being an optimist become such a crime? I'm not an economist, so I don't know if "America's standard of living" has been permanently affected by this recession, but I do know that if convince myself that mine is, then it is. If you believe you are beaten, you are. For what it's worth, I DO know that the Great Depression didn't permanently ruin American's standard of living. I would say it's improved since then. I know the recession in the early 1970s didn't kill us either. Or the one in the mid '80s. In fact, I would go as far as to say no recession in history has ever permanently affected our standard of living negatively. So I'm going to choose to ignore yet another blowhard on this negative, sensationalist web site. If you want to believe this recession has beaten you, go ahead. I will place far more credence in what Bill Gates says, and choose, like him, to believe that a cure for malaria IS possible and a superior education system is something we CAN build. I'm an optimist.