“Many of us are not aware of our optimistic tendencies.… Data clearly shows that most people overestimate their prospects for professional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; miscalculate their likely life span; expect to be healthier than their peers; hugely underestimate their likelihood of divorce, cancer, and unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will be better than those their parents put up with. This is known as the optimism bias—the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events. —The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain
(TALI SHAROT, PANTHEON BOOKS, 2011)”