What If We Subtracted: Optimism

A surprising moral obligation, fixing lazy eyes, and the glass that always has the same amount of water

Jul 06, 2026

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I was going to write about interdependence this month. For this 250th celebration, it felt like the right theme — especially in a country that already over-indexes on independence as a virtue. A muscle that clearly still needs building.

But two conferences in May presented ideas that convinced me to change that plan.

The first was ATD (the largest talent development conference in the world they say), where I was on stage for London Business School talking subtraction. In the morning keynote, Zack Kass, one of OpenAI’s earliest team members and now among the sharpest voices on what AI means for how we work and live, said:

Optimism is not naive. It’s a moral obligation.

The second provocation was in Athens, at a creative and forward-looking gathering curated and produced by the House of Beautiful Business. Rachel Goslins offered an insightful metaphor: we know how to fix a lazy eye. You patch the strong eye, so the weak one is forced to pick up the slack and see for itself. It’s the universally agreed-upon fix, regardless of resources or technology.

Her point: if we only ever use the eye that’s drawn to chaos, crisis, and conflict — which is loud, constant, and everywhere right now — the eye for what’s going right, or how it could get better, atrophies. And we can’t build a future we can’t see.

And so, this month, we will dive into optimism and what about it needs to be subtracted to fulfill our moral obligation to envision — so that we can then build — a better future.

The etymology, because of course

Optimism comes from the Latin optimus, meaning best. Which is where I think the trouble starts. Best is singular, final, determinant. And in a country (much less planet) this plural and dynamic, agreeing on a singular best — in any dimension, for any of us — is probably impossible. So the pursuit of best — recognizable as one dimensional optimizing — is worth subtracting right out of the gate.

The modern, more useful definition of optimism is expecting a positive outcome.

Or, the glass half full versus half empty question. I like that frame because it is concrete and reveals something about optimism. The glass is the glass. The water level doesn’t change.

What changes is the label you put on it. Calling it half full isn’t lying about the ounces. It’s not ignoring the truth. It’s making a choice about which truth you’re choosing to recognize — and it’s a choice the research says pays off: better health outcomes, faster recovery from stress, even higher likability. (Optimism makes you cool. How’s that for an incentive to try it?)

The honest tension

There is a real and growing trend of toxic positivity, especially inside the self-help industrial complex, that I want to call out explicitly. This isn’t that.

Choosing optimism doesn’t mean denying real crises, cruel injustices, or real world urgency. It means refusing to let that be the only story. Sometimes it means deliberately covering one eye — not gouging it out of the socket, but closing it temporarily to enable the other eye to see a positive future. Because again, we need to stay connected to the vision of what we want to build. We can only work toward something that we can see.

Where we’re headed this month

Across ME, WE, and WORLD — the personal payoff, the team and relationship dynamics, and the broader civic moment we’re in — I’ll have conversations with people who think hard about this to deepen my own thinking, plus continue the daily Subtraction Summer School prompts, inspired by my Subtraction playlist.

Here are some of the questions I’m starting with:

Where have you used optimism to your advantage? Big or small, recent or old — what happened when you chose the glass-half-full path toward a goal?
Where do you resist or resent optimism when you see it — and is that resistance protecting you, or clouding you? Give this one a beat before you judge it.
Do you have a real life situation where experimenting with glass-half-full might genuinely help — you, or someone you care about?
I’ve long believed assuming positive intent transforms relationships, looking backward. Does expecting a positive outcome — optimism’s work, looking forward — carry the same power?
How do we stay honestly informed — about the world, our work, our people, ourselves — without letting the optimism muscle atrophy in a media environment that’s decided bad news sells and in relationships where we often display a bias for negativity?

I’ll be working through these questions myself over the month (paying subscribers can see my initial thoughts below). And would love to hear your initial reactions, answers, or further questions are — that co-creation is my favorite part of this Subtraction lab, and informs the conversations I have with my fabulous conversation partners in the Subtraction Sessions.

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