Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello, welcome to "counseling & words" and to my word of today which is the
English-international word "meliorism".
Well, "meliorism" is the belief that the world can be made better by human effort'
According to Voltaire we have four isms we have optimism, meliorism, quietism and
pessimism. An optimist has the view that the world is the best world there can be,
no matter what we do. A quietist accepts things as they are, keeps out of the line
of fire and gets on quietly with life. And a
pessimist thinks that almost everything is bad and will never go better, no
matter what we do; and then we have "meliorism". "Meliorism" is the view that the
world is far from being perfect but it can be made better by human effort.
"Meliorism" has many faces and you can find meliorists in psychology,
philosophy or medicine and so on and so on. Throughout people's existence they
have tried to make the world a better place. Just think of all the inventions
in medicine, physics, technology, agriculture, music, literature, and so on
and so on. All these inventors lived their dreams and they made the world a better
place. They were driven forward by curiosity, ambition, and brainpower.
Transferring the idea of "meliorism" to today's life: What can we do to
improve our world? Not everybody can be an inventor but what we can is try to
make our own world a bit better. The way we solve our problems will shape us.
Living with a slightly negative view on life will not contribute to a better
world. We tend to blame others for our problems, and we are too often caught by
negative feelings. We are in a spiral and not able to think clearly. How can we win
another view on our problems?
Thinking of the first people on this planet I imagine they just had to
survive and there was no time to struggle with personal problems. They had
to look forward and to be open-minded and goal-directed. Remaining in negative
thoughts would have been fatal for them. Nowadays we are living with daily
struggles and it depends on how we see, think and feel about a problem to find a
way through. That view on situations will form the basis of our actions for going
forward and the possibilities that open up for us. Sometimes life can be
overwhelming and we think we've lost control. With "meliorism" we remain
active and we keep control of our next steps in life.
So that was about my English-international word "meliorism". I hope you
enjoyed the talk. If so give my video a thumbs-up, subscribe to my channel' and I
see you very soon. Bye bye, enjoy life!