Archives for August 2016 | I am Optimism Man

Have a Daughter, Part 4

Aug 252016

Hollywood says that it portrays better equality in the movies, but in truth, they are handily flunking the test. The message in well over 85% of movies is male, and violent, and the prize is the girl at the end of the movie. When a girl is featured, she is usually a warrior dealing out violence as well.

Parents of girls have to see the issues and messaging clearly and do their best to compensate because Hollywood is not helping, or changing anytime soon. An excellent observation in the TED talk below is that this imbalance has an enormous effect on boys as well, and how they view and treat women.

This video by Colin Stokes is well worth your twelve minutes:

Lets make this world better for our daughters than it is today. Every step matters.

I.M. Optimisman

PS. Here are the previous three articles in my Have a Daughter series:
Part One Part Two Part Three

Optimism and Greatness

Belief, Choice, Success

Aug 212016

For the last few weeks, we have watched the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Sport, especially at the Olympics, is the most obvious lab that proves that greatness requires optimism. Does anyone win a gold medal without hope and belief?

It is hard for me to understand why pessimists and realists think it is better to be a pessimist or a realist.

Make the right choice with your life.

I.M. OptimismMan

Regrets, Resilience, Positivity, and Gaming

Fascinating, Happiness, Success, Wisdom

Aug 152016

As you can imagine, I, OptimismMan, am a great believer of the power of positivity. But I have to confess that I have had my doubts about dedicating time to social networking and gaming, as both of these clearly seem to conflict with all my theories on investing one’s time instead of spending it in foolish ways. I’ve also explored what people regret when they are dying for clues to how to be brave and live better.

So then I stumbled into Jane McGonigal, a game designer who argues that gaming can play a role in avoiding the most typical regrets of the dying. I believe in questioning everything, so today, I’m simultaneously questioning her game-centric conclusions as well as my previous thinking, wondering if the time “spent” gaming might actually be more of a time “investment” than I ever appreciated. I don’t have a conclusion just yet — maybe I never will — but I suggest watching her excellent talk and thinking about it for yourself, especially if you have a kid that spends a lot of time gaming right now:

Interesting, right?

I.M. OptimismMan