Optimism is a mental attitude that interprets situations and events as being best (optimized), meaning that in some way for factors that may not be fully comprehended, the present moment is in an optimum state. The concept is typically extended to include the attitude of hope for future conditions unfolding as optimal as well. The more broad concept of optimism is the understanding that all of nature, past, present and future, operates by laws of optimization along the lines of Hamilton's principle of optimization in the realm of physics. This understanding, although criticized by counter views such as pessimism, idealism and realism, leads to a state of mind that believes everything is as it should be, and that the future will be as well. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass with water at the halfway point, where the optimist is said to see the glass as half full, but the pessimist sees the glass as half empty.

The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given situation. This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism.

Jason Silva (born February 6, 1982 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, the Emmy winning youth-oriented lifestyle cable network started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, now the fastest growing network in TV history. He resides in Los Angeles, California.

Silva earned a degree in film and philosophy from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He, along with Max Lugavere, produced and starred in a video documentary/performance piece entitled "Textures of Selfhood"—an experimental film about hedonism and spirituality. "The Party-Philosophers" and "Intellectual Hedonists", aptly named by Angeleno Magazine, borrowed the name for the film from the Hedonistic Imperative, a website promoting the end to suffering by philosopher David Pearce.

"Max and Jason" have become a prolific hosting and producing duo on Current TV, with widely ranging stories- from illegal immigration and counterfeit IDs, to profiling a brave new singer songwriter right before signing a publishing deal, to a taped philosophical sit-down with director Darren Aronofsky. Their story on counterfeit IDs earned them a featured appearance and interview on Anderson Cooper 360. Their franchise, "Max and Jason Style" has become one of the hallmarks of their work on Current TV, denoting coverage of an issue in a voice that is distinctly unique- often juxtaposing telegenic images and a heightened filmmaking aesthetic with bold and intelligent content. The results are a compelling product, which as The Internet Examiner put it, is proof that "Current is getting it just right."

Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman (born August 12, 1942) is an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. His theory of learned helplessness is popular among scientific and clinical psychologists.

According to Haggbloom et al.'s study of the most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, Seligman was the 13th most frequently cited psychologist in introductory psychology textbooks throughout the century, as well as the 31st most eminent overall.

Seligman is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Psychology. He was previously the Director of the Clinical Training Program in the department. He is the director of the university's Positive Psychology Center. Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological Association for 1998. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Prevention and Treatment Magazine (the APA electronic journal) and is on the board of advisers of Parents magazine.

Seligman has written about positive psychology topics such as The Optimistic Child, Child's Play, Learned Optimism, Authentic Happiness, and Flourish.

Michael J. Fox, OC (born Michael Andrew Fox; June 9, 1961) is a Canadian American actor, author, celebrity, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990); Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties (1982–1989) for which he won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty from Spin City (1996–2000), for which he won an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991, and disclosed his condition to the public in 1998. Fox semi-retired from acting in 2000 as the symptoms of his disease worsened. He has since become an activist for research toward finding a cure. This led him to create the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and on March 5, 2010, Sweden's Karolinska Institutet gave him a honoris causa doctorate for his work in advocating a cure for Parkinson's disease.

Since 2000 Fox has mainly worked as a voice-over actor in films such as Stuart Little and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and taken guest TV roles such as in Boston Legal, The Good Wife, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Rescue Me. He has also released three books, Lucky Man: A Memoir (2002); Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist (2009); and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned (2010). He was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 27, 2011, for his outreach and fundraising work.

Barbara Ehrenreich ( /ˈɛrɨnraɪk/;) born August 26, 1941, Butte, Montana is an American feminist, democratic socialist, and political activist who describes herself as "a myth buster by trade", and has been called "a veteran muckraker" by The New Yorker. During the 1980s and early 1990s she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She is a widely-read and award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books.

Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Howes Alexander in Butte, Montana, which she describes as then being "a bustling, brawling, blue collar mining town". In an interview on C-SPAN, she characterized her parents as "strong union people" with two family rules: "never cross a picket line and never vote Republican". In a talk she gave in 1999, Ehrenreich called herself a "fourth-generation atheist".

"As a little girl", she told the New York Times in 1993, "I would go to school and have to decide if my parents were the evil people they were talking about, part of the Red Menace we read about in the Weekly Reader. Just because my mother was a liberal Democrat who would always talk about racial injustice." Her father was a copper miner who went to the Montana State School of Mines (now part of the University of Montana), and then to Carnegie Mellon University. He eventually became a senior executive at the Gillette Corporation. Her parents later divorced.