Sunday Scaries? Try These 7 Expert Tips for Realistic Optimism (Exclusive)

If you hang around certain corners of the internet too much, you’d never guess that, by many objective measures, this is the best time ever to be alive.

Or is that just toxic positivity talking?

Amid the ever-present news coverage of tragedies, accidents, disasters, chaos and confusion — as well as algorithm-driven social media platforms that help provocative and divisive content go viral — expert Bill Burke says there’s a real challenge in finding and holding onto realistic optimism.

Anxiety feels more and more commonplace; it’s all too easy to fret about the “Sunday scaries.”

“There’s never been a better time to be alive than today, but there’s never been a harder time to be optimistic,” Burke, a media executive, writer, podcast host and founder of The Optimism Institute, tells PEOPLE.

“If people think that this country has never been more divided, they should read about the Civil War. They should read about the summer of 1969,” Burke says. “They should read about assassinations becoming commonplace. If they think the protests on college campuses last year were alarming, they should look at what was happening to this country over Vietnam.”

Burke started The Optimism Institute in 2022 to help inspire others with a “hopeful vision of the world and our future.”

He recently shared some of his tips with PEOPLE, too.

Context counts

“Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of Wired magazine, said if you only read the news, you’ll think things have never been worse. But if you read history, you realize things have never been better.

“I encourage people to read more history and put what we are going through today in context. I read An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, her firsthand account of the 1960s. My God, things were chaotic then. The president assassinated, then Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights [Movement]. It makes today pretty calm by comparison.

“One thing that could be helpful is think about all the things in your life that will not change: Friends, your family, your pets. You have a house of worship if you like, the people you work with — all those things that aren’t changing. My wife and I were at the symphony performance and I thought, this isn’t going anywhere.”

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Action over anxiety

“If there’s something really getting on your nerves, think about what you can do about it. If you’re distraught about the fires in California, write a check, call a friend you know who lives out there.

“Action can absorb anxiety. Sitting in your room and stewing helps nobody. It doesn’t help the issue and it’s corrosive to yourself. If you want to make yourself happier — make somebody else happier. I just believe that in my core.”

Bend (or break) your algorithm

“If you are outside two restaurants and one is serving junk food and the other one is serving healthy food and you go to the junk food, that’s on you. You had a choice. And we do that with social media. 

“Look at the people who make you feel awful every time you read something from them. Every time you share, send, whatever — that’s a vote. And you are going to be rewarded for it for better or worse. The more you like this or share that [content], you’re going to get more of it.

“Just as algorithms can spin you down into darkness and doom, they can spin you up to a great place. There’s all kinds of wonderful things going on on the internet that are fun and harmless. 

“Clean up your feed and use social media less.”

Mind Mr. Rogers

“I always go back to Mr. Rogers and ‘look for the helpers.’ See the outpouring of community support that is happening in Southern California and the bravery of those firefighters. 

“People go into their camps and scream about climate change, which is absolutely worth being worried about, or the L.A. Fire Department has a DEI director making $300,000 a year. So [they argue] this fire is either 100% because of climate change or 100% because the fire department is too woke.

“Could we at least get everyone safe and put the fires out before we go into our camps? That’s not a great place to be, and I think we really need to work on pulling ourselves out of that.”

Knowing what you can and can’t do

“Stephen Covey (who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) talks about a circle of concern and a circle of influence. Circle of concern is huge. It’s things like climate change, which we should be concerned about. It’s things like wars going on around the world, which we should be concerned about — but we don’t have much, if any, influence over.

“If you focus on your circle of influence with your time and your energy, that’s going to be a lot more rewarding and frankly impactful. So that circle is your family, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors.

“If you focus more of your energy on that and making those people’s lives better and improving their situations, it’s going to be better for you. And frankly, you’re going to have a whole lot more impact. And that circle of influence can grow and have ripple effects.”

Consider your news

“I do think your media diet is your food diet. And if you put bad stuff in, it’s not going to make you feel good. And if you want to be healthy mentally, put good things into your brain.

“If you are going to consume news from traditional news or cable news, try to get a little flavor of the other side.  So if you’re a Fox person, try watching a little MSNBC. If you read The Wall Street Journal editorial page, read The New York Times editorial page.

“There’s smart people on both sides and it’s helpful to get the full range.”

Keep an eye out for the good

“Try to catch people being good. I’m living in New York City and I have probably a six block walk home. I intentionally don’t put in AirPods, I don’t get on my phone. I look.

“And if you look around and you’re looking for goodness, it’s everywhere. Even in a place like New York, where people think it’s this dangerous [place], there are people helping each other. There are people petting strangers’ dogs. There are people when the person who’s a tourist can’t figure out where Columbus Circle is, five people tell ’em how to get there.

“That is the norm. Our brains are wired to catch exceptions and differences, and that’s why we respond to the negative stuff because it’s the exception. And I think it’s really helpful to understand that the good guys have always outnumbered the bad guys, and they always will. And I think being aware of that is really healthy.”