Foolish Optimism

20ºS 20ºW – We are about 850 nautical miles from the nearest land, not the place to have any doubts about one's abilities or the integrity of the boat. It is a time for foolish optimism.

On the eve of Molly's first Leadville 100 running race, a good friend asked her why she was running. Molly responded that if she could run a hundred miles, then she felt like she could do anything. Our friend, a Marine aviator still brimming with "Top Gun" self-confidence a decade after a career of flying jets off aircraft carriers, laughed. He then noted that anything Molly thought she could do after, she could probably do before running a hundred miles and that she should consider sparing herself the misery.

His point was simply that that there is nothing intrinsic to one experience that magically empowers an individual's future abilities. Self-confidence can be firm or ephemeral, and is as much the product of our imaginations as it is a product of past experience. At least in part, we choose to believe or not to believe in our abilities to accomplish a given task.

Our friend spoke with real reverence about the moment when in the darkness the carrier runway lights appeared and then began undulating in the sea– quintessentially not the moment to be wondering if you have the right stuff. Our friend was not unrealistic, on the contrary he is a rather practical man; he had just realized that when faced with adversity, the best default setting is self-confidence.

There are very real limits to our potential achievements, such as our physical capacity, available resources, and relevant knowledge. These limits may be hard to measure but are clearly variable. You can learn more, stockpile resources, and train for higher levels of performance. In the moment however, these capacities are finite.

A foolish optimism in the midst of adversity is an advantage not a hinderance. Before and after an experience, excessive self-confidence is a set of blinders to reality that one must diligently clear away. We learn from experience through honest reflection on our successes and errors, with mistakes being the better teacher. But we have to be able to see the mistakes.

Like oil and water, these alternate realities do not readily mix. Cycling back and forth between supreme self-confidence and significant self-doubt is a long-term challenge to high performance in any domain. The former is a vital survival strategy and the latter is the driver to proper preparation for survival.

The angst I felt as we prepared to leave South Georgia to cross the Atlantic Ocean again is gone (mostly...) because we prepared for this long passage on the basis of self-doubt, and have replaced it with a foolish optimism as we sail for the horizon ahead. - Christopher