My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

Author: A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Insight: We tend to think of optimism as something you either have or you don't—a personality trait you're stuck with. But this observation flips that: optimism might actually be something we lose as we accumulate experience. Each time life disappoints us, each time a plan crumbles or a person lets us down, we add another small layer of protective cynicism. It's not wrong exactly, just realistic. Except that realism can become a kind of prison. The less obvious part here is about imagination. We rarely connect imagination to how many possibilities we're willing to consider. A younger mind hasn't yet learned which doors supposedly don't open, so it imagines more freely. But adults aren't just more cautious—we're working with a mental filing system full of "I already know how this ends." That's efficient in some ways. It's also limiting. The bias isn't always against being hopeful; sometimes it's the bias of knowing too much, or thinking we do. The interesting challenge isn't recapturing youth. It's occasionally asking yourself: what am I not imagining because I've decided it won't work? Where have I stopped trying because I've seen similar attempts fail? Those questions can crack open the protective shell without making you reckless.