The world isn’t coming to an end, contrary to what you may have heard. But the media’s near-exclusive focus on conflict and disaster means that the progress and everyday acts of brilliance taking place across the globe go unnoticed.
Jurriaan Kamp shows that optimism—intelligent optimism, not a rose-colored-glasses brand of wishful thinking—is good for not only your mind but your body too. He details a whole host of health problems that can actually be linked to pessimism. Moreover, there is good reason for optimism: Kamp proves that on the whole we’re living longer, becoming smarter, working less, and growing richer. Not only that, democracy is on the rise, and violence is declining. This book will help you tune out the media’s focus on sensationalism and negativity and turn on your natural optimism so you’ll drop into a “real world” that’s richer than you ever imagined.
Jurriaan Kamp is curator of the ‘solutions news’ platform, KAMP SOLUTIONS. In 1995, Jurriaan Kamp left a successful career as the chief economics editor at the leading Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, to co-found the “solutions journalism” magazine Ode in the Netherlands. In 2004, he moved to California with his family to launch the international edition of the magazine, renamed The Intelligent Optimist in 2012. Under his guidance, the magazine has won the prestigious Maggie Award for journalism several times. In 2015, Kamp launched a daily online solutions news service, The Optimist Daily. He has since moved on launching KAMP SOLUTIONS. Kamp has regularly come in ahead of the curve on stories that advance new visions of our world, whether he’s advocating a more-is-better approach to sustainability or showcasing thought leaders like alternative health pioneer Deepak Chopra or Muhammad Yunus, founder of microcredit, long before the mainstream media learns of their work. Kamp wrote his own book about microcredit, Small Change: How Fifty Dollars Changes the World (2003). He has also brought people together through conferences like, The Treaty of Noordwijk aan Zee, which laid out the principles of a world economy on a human scale. That theme became the subject of his book Because People Matter: Building an Economy that Works for Everyone, published in 2001. His book The Intelligent Optimist’s Guide to Life: How to find health and success in a world that’s a better place than you think was published by Berrett-Koehler in 2014. Recently he wrote, with Gunter Pauli, The Third Dimension: 3D farming and 11 more unstoppable trends revolutionizing the production of food and fuel regenerating nature and rebuilding communities, and LiFi: Communication at the speed of light and the emergence of the Internet of people. Kamp studied international law at Leyden University in the Netherlands. He lives with his beloved, Nancy McGrath, in Santa Barbara, California.
