How to try and be wonderfully optimistic in a world of half-empty glasses

Optimism is not the magic of a prediction: it is, rather, the hard work of discipline. Optimism is not made up of screenshots: on the contrary, it is made up of trends, data, contexts and developments. Optimism is not turning a blind eye to the present: it is having faith in our ability to find the right tools to build a better future. Our newspaper’s somewhat reckless attempt to find a way to remind ourselves every day that, alongside the thousand half-empty glasses, there are just as many half-full ones, coincides today with our tenth ‘crazy’ festival of optimism, in Florence, at Palazzo Vecchio, from 8.30 am, and the occasion may serve as a useful opportunity to try to answer a difficult but necessary question: what must we cling to today in order to remain optimistic about the future, despite the endless disasters of the present?

Optimistic thinking today is held hostage by a misconception: namely, the idea that anyone who tries to look to the future with confidence – the idea, as Pope Leo XIV said at the Rimini Meeting, that the future is not a threat to be feared but a promise to be built upon with responsibility – is living outside reality. In fact, the opposite is true. Optimistic thinking—perhaps a minority view, but one that is vigorous, stubborn and, of course, confident in its ability to prevail over the opposing view—thrives on discipline insofar as, through trends, data, developments and context, it seeks to reclaim reality.

Reality is sometimes less ‘viral’ than perception, and this is partly because, in a world dominated by the algorithm of pessimism, being optimistic often makes one feel out of step with the world; yet reality is fortunate enough to be a mosaic composed of facts, not words, which often escape our attention. And those facts deserve not to be overlooked. In 2025, despite global turmoil, after years of decline, nearly three out of four countries have maintained or improved their level of democracy (including India; today, around 3.66 billion people live in democracies, approximately 44.5 per cent of the world’s population: not so bad).

In 2025, the OECD calculated that member countries had welcomed 6.2 million permanent immigrants, 15 per cent more than in 2019, a sign that the West’s appeal is perhaps greater than we perceive. During the same period, the United States, the EU, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and South Korea came to account for 56 per cent of global nominal GDP. There are wars, of course, there are tragedies, there is high inflation, and stock markets are volatile, but alongside all this there is more. There is a broad alliance which, in varying degrees, opposes the sponsors of terror as they reorganise themselves (NATO has expanded its borders); there is scientific research which, thanks in part to the breakthroughs achieved during the Covid pandemic, offers hope to those who previously had none (mRNA vaccines now offer new hope in the fight against certain cancers) and there is a free world which, despite everything, has managed to reconcile the defence of democracies (Ukraine) with the defence of prosperity (in terms of real GDP, net of inflation, between 2020 and 2025 US GDP grew by 17.6 per cent, whilst that of the EU grew by 13.6 per cent).

The optimist does not turn a blind eye to disorder, nor does he close his eyes when, amidst the chaos, a new order begins to emerge. This happens when Trumpism stimulates the creation of antibodies (Trump’s followers can now be counted on the fingers of one hand). It happens when protectionism forces the world to find ways to trade more (2025 was a record year for global trade). The pessimist tends to indulge in a culture of whingeing, whilst the optimist seeks solutions and tries to find a way – not to deny the diagnosis of the present – but to find alternatives to scapegoats in order to prepare for the future. Choosing which side to take should not be that difficult: reality or whingeing? Long live optimism, even in a world of half-empty glasses.