The Groove 126 - How to Live Like an Optimist
HOW TO LIVE LIKE AN OPTIMIST
You may have many reasons not to feel optimistic right now. And I don’t blame you because the world is a mess.
But one thing I’ve learned that has impacted my life in immeasurable ways is that protecting and acknowledging my daily moments of happiness and expecting good things to happen is much more fulfilling and usually accelerates the arrival of what I want much more than living in cynicism, victimhood or disappointment.
The word “optimism” comes from the Latin root “optim” and means “one who hopes for the best.” The term was launched out of philosophical jargon and into currency by Voltaire's short novel "Candide" in 1759. Reportedly the first person to use the term in English was Percy Bysshe Shelley in his 1819 "Ode to the West Wind," which ends on an optimistic note asserting that if winter days are here then spring is not very far. Amen to that, Percy.
As I was mulling over these ideas, I remembered an artist whose work is so fantastically fresh and magnetic, that when I encountered it for the first time in a museum in the south of Spain, I immediately thought she couldn’t have been anything but a huge optimist. Born Ana María Gómez González in 1902 in a tiny town in Galicia, she gave herself the new identity of “Maruja Mallo”, becoming the first and last Spanish female artist of the avant-garde. She was a woman whose attitude of hopefulness, even in the face of calamities, helped her attain a long and successful career and life.
Happiness + Self Esteem = Optimism
Maruja Mallo in her studio in Madrid in the late 1920s.
It’s one thing to have self-esteem but it’s another to be happy. And we need both.
According to a 2004 study, people who feel happy enjoy high levels of self-esteem and have an easier time being optimists. However, those who can’t experience happiness but still have a good level of self-esteem have a hard time being optimistic about the future. In other words, happiness is an important prerequisite for optimism and self-esteem alone doesn’t guarantee it.
Mallo was always remembered by her peers, biographers and historians as someone who was happy. She was one of 14 kids, so things weren’t easy in her house when she was growing up. On top of that, she wanted to be an artist, and women didn’t necessarily get to be one 100 years ago. But when her family moved to Madrid in 1922, she became the only woman who got accepted into the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts that year.
In Madrid, she made friends with artists and writers who influenced her life: Salvador Dali, Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel. Mallo was treated as an equal in a world that was anything but. And because her talents were so palpable, the celebrated writer Jose Ortega y Gasset recognized her work and in 1928, he organized her first exhibit.
This show launched Mallo’s career: a commercial success that was praised for its originality and freshness. The ten paintings displayed a vibrant Spain full of optimism and represented sunny towns, bullfighters, ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds and sassy women. When asked where she got the idea for such buoyant representations she shrugged and simply answered, “I paint what I see.”
Clearly, Mallo had a more positive outlook than the average Joe, not only in her canvases but also in her mind. And in 1931, she did what most women didn’t do: she won a scholarship to study in Paris.
She knew who she was as an artist and she was confident in herself, but she was also a happy person and this propelled her career to places where very few other Spanish artists, much less women, went.
Live in the 51%
Maruja Mallo, Verbena Kermesse, 1929, oil on canvas.
Last week I was hosting the monthly call for the members of my online course Jumpstart, when I shared with them the concept of the 51% - can you have positive expectations, or feel generally good about your life at least 51% of the time? And if you are already at that level, what about challenging yourself to increase that number in small increments of one percent, maybe every month?
For Mallo, success was a cumulative endeavor. While in Paris, André Breton praised and acquired her work. The press in Madrid was constantly writing about her and although everything seemed to be running smoothly, the situation at home wasn’t matching her high vibes. By 1937, a full-fledged civil war had exploded in Spain and Mallo had to flee to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Even though she had to migrate by herself, Mallo didn’t succumb to the dire circumstances of the moment. She forged new friendships and figured out how to insert herself in the cultural circles that helped her advance her career and life.
She not only kept her studio practice active and evolving but started designing theater sets, painted murals, traveled extensively in the entire continent and had several shows in cities like Rio de Janeiro, New York and Viña del Mar.
Years later she would write: "I feel more complete since I have lived in America. ... On this immense continent which offered me ... the zest for life instead of the agony of death. It was an awakening that revealed new visions, surprises and concepts to me. An epiphany that pushed me like a great waterfall... "
Despite the challenges of leaving a successful life behind, Mallo was full of optimism, far from the horrors of Spain and the rest of Europe where World War II had also begun, immersed in the splendid glories of South American nature, her creativity flowing in full force.
She was operating from her 51% or even a higher number than that.
Look for That One Piece
Maruja Mallo, Mujer con Cabra, 1929, oil on canvas.
After almost two decades in exile, Mallo returned to Madrid in 1961. But nobody remembered her. This seemed not to be an issue for her, and despite the fact that she was almost 60 years old, she staged an arresting comeback: she wore eccentric clothes, put on outrageous makeup, started hanging out with people who were half her age, and never stopped smiling. It wasn’t toxic positivity; this was who she was.
Soon enough, Mallo’s work was back in Madrid galleries. She was a guest on TV shows and a fixture in magazines and newspapers. She was the guest of honor at parties and even became the sensation of the first edition of the contemporary art fair ARCOMadrid in 1982 when at the age of 80 she showed up wearing a coat that resembled the fur of a cheetah, deep vermillion lips and extravagant turquoise eyeshadow.
“Every day of my life, I’ve had a piece of happiness,” Mallo told her nephew at the end of her life. She was willing to acknowledge that piece of happiness, whatever it was, and she used it to sustain her hope. That’s such an indicator of emotional maturity of those who have a deep desire to live well.
Thinking about Mallo’s life, who passed away at the age of 93 in 1995, could you end your day and ask yourself what are the good things that happened to you? Something must come to light. Just that one piece every day. And what about the 51%? Maybe a gratitude journal can help.
It does seem that the path to optimism is not that unreachable after all.
JUMPSTART: IGNITE YOUR CREATIVITY FOR PROFIT, INNOVATION, AND REINVENTION
I’ve put together a free webinar for those of you who are not members of my online course and inner circle.
If you’d like to watch it, please register here (it’s on auto-repeat every 15 minutes once you have registered).
But if you are ready to enroll now, you can do so here. I’m always thrilled to welcome new members!
HOW CREATIVITY RULES THE WORLD
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TEDX TALK
Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?
I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.