Optimism is the counterpart to nostalgia, except it looks to the future instead of the past. Because events haven't occurred, optimistic expectations can come true.

optimism n.

What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and before discovering the next last bug. Fred Brooks's book "The Mythical Man-Month" (See "Brooks's Law") contains the following paragraph that describes this extremely well:

All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug.".

See also Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Optimism is the key to improving your life. It is the perfect treatment for phobias, and anxieties. Scientists have recently discovered that the thoughts send out frequencies and frequencies are basically energy and energy is basically everything in the universe. If you are thinking negatively, it attracts the negative energy. If you are optimistic, you will attract positive energy. If you aren't thinking about the worst situation, then you will be more confident than if you were thinking about the worst case scenario.

Ever since I've been studying optimism (combined with affirmations and afformations), I've went from being an antisocialperson with no friends to a more outgoing person. I was scared that If I talked to people that "this" or "that" might happen but I stopped thinking about the worse case scenario and now I think of the BEST.

Positive Thinking Is Good For The Heart

The Science of Affirmations

All You Need To Know About Thoughts (LONG!)

Op"ti*mism (?), n. [L. optimus the best; akin to optio choice: cf. F. optimisme. See Option.]

1. Metaph.

The opinion or doctrine that everything in nature, being the work of God, is ordered for the best, or that the ordering of things in the universe is such as to produce the highest good.

2.

A disposition to take the most hopeful view; -- opposed to pessimism.

© Webster 1913.