optimism, attitude and success

Today someone sent a “thought for the day” on attitude and it was a quote from Hellen Keller: “keep your face to sunshine and you cannot see the shadows”. Every now and then one hears about how a positive attitude or optimism can result in positive results. The other day I got a mail from one of our senor leaders on a research done on luck favoring the optimistic individuals. I wonder if such claims and research are free of biases.
• We tend to be more influenced by people like Hellen Keller who have succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination and it is very difficult to challenge their view point
• People who have succeed are more likely to share their experiences than their counterparts who haven’t succeeded
• People who have succeeded are more likely to remember their positive attitude and thinking during the trying times
I personally have gone through lot of ups and downs and my experience has been quite the opposite. I have been mostly taken by surprise by big events whether positive or negative. My important achievements have come at a time when I used to expect or fear the worst and similarly I have suffered setbacks when the expectation used to be to the contrary. One can question my ability to judge a situation correctly but there is no doubt that neither the positive nor the negative expectations have influenced the outcomes. My experience is that when an individual goes through difficult times he at times expects the worst and at others expects the best. However, what he is more likely to be remembered depends on how things turn out for him in the future. There is also a tendency in people to justify everything post facto. The only way this can be ascertained is to be with a selected group of people and take note of their thinking and feelings as and when they occur rather than depending on the memory of the people themselves.
Another aspect is we are aware of our fundamental strengths and past experience, based on which we can reasonably judge our chances taking into consideration the market realities. So if I have expertise in an area which is likely to be in demand in the future I am more likely to consider the current setback as temporary and remain optimistic and ultimately succeed. In this case also the credit for success can’t be attributed to success rather the optimism can be attributed to the chance of success based on sound analysis. In order to avoid any bias it is also important to select a group with similar profile, strengths and experience.
If we take it a little out of the logical realm we may also agree that somehow deep within us all of us know what is there in store for us in the future. The optimism may be result of that unexplainable knowledge of our future success rather than optimism causing the success.
Let us consider just the quote by Helen Keller and keep her unimaginable achievements aside. Just because we continue to look at the Sun the shadows don’t disappear. In reality the shadows would still be there whether we choose to take cognizance of them or not. So what is the harm in taking note of the shadows if they exist in reality? Does deceiving oneself help in the long run? When we look at the shadows we should not allow them to take control of us or our thinking. We should not worry about them so much that it will lead us to desperation or inaction. But we should have the strength of character to accept reality as it exists. Again if we can take ourselves to a different realm shadows can also be as beautiful as the Sun. We should not be afraid of enjoying both the sun and the shadows to the full. According to Kahlil Gibran “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” There is also a need to differentiate between positive attitude and optimism. While optimism or pessimism are concerned with one's own judgement or perception of probability of occurence of a future event attitude is more fundamental and is a menifestation of one's values and character. In the real world a negtive attitude can often lead to success, at least, the way success is conventionally understood and determined. For example exploiting others who are less fortunate may lead to more profit but it is a negative attitude.