This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2130, Lemonade and Optimism in American Culture.
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When it comes to American culture, are we too positive and optimistic?
Today, Lindsay and Michelle shared their opinions and you'll learn four American English phrases that are in our movies and conversations that show optimism.
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Hey there, Michelle.
How's it going?
What's shaking?
Hey, Lindsay, not too much.
Do you tend to look at the bright side of things, would you say?
Yeah, I would say my personality is generally pretty optimistic.
I mean, sometimes things get a little dark, right?
And if we watch the news a lot, it can be hard to stay optimistic.
But yeah, I would say my basic personality is positive.
What about?
You think I'm a little bit of both, like I.
I I always think about that.
Do I fall into one or the other?
And I'm not sure that I do.
Um, I think lately I've been a little bit more optimistic.
So that's a good thing, that's awesome, that's yeah yeah, is there anything that's uh provoking that, anything specific?
Or just the sunshine coming out, maybe the sunshine?
Um yeah, it's a good question.
But lately i've been feeling like oh, you know, although yeah Anyway, not all the time.
Today we're going to get into this, right?
Personalities and also how it collides with culture, right?
How could our culture influence our personality?
That is interesting.
But guys, go ahead and make sure you hit follow right now on All Ears English, because we focus on connection, human connection.
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All right, Michelle, let's get deeper into it.
All right.
So today we're talking about the culture of optimism in the US.
And also head on over a couple of days ago, episode 2128.
We did what is New Year's like in New York City.
So that was super fun.
Get optimistic about the new year.
Lindsay, do you think that in the US people are generally taught to be optimistic?
Is it part of our culture?
Oh, yeah.
How do you feel about it?
I really think they are.
We are here.
It's um.
We always like to kind of wrap things up with a nice positive spin at the end.
If you watch our sitcoms or tv shows, we've always said on this show there's always a lesson, but there's also usually a positive spin to that lesson at the end of the show, wouldn't you agree?
Yes, especially like shows like full house.
Um, oh yeah, you know, I'm not sure if that's changing a little bit, because I feel like our sitcoms have gotten a little more edgy.
Darker.
Right?
Like I mean.
So I think it's a little bit different now, but certainly growing up, that cheesy 90s sitcom Full House, even Saved by the Bell, there was always kind of a moral element of the story and optimism.
Yeah, and i guess when i think about american culture you know, for a country that is so independent-minded, we kind of have to be that way it probably comes back to the pioneer roots right, because pioneers had to cross the country and discover and just sort of pave a way, and I guess the narrative has to have been positive, otherwise why would you do it if you didn't kind of have an optimistic, a belief that it would be a positive thing, right?
Yeah yeah, that's a good point.
So today we're going to talk about this culture of optimism in the us.
Um lindsay um, this idea is inspired by sophie ann's question in circle.
Yeah um, circle is our community right, michelle?
It's our.
Is our student community, where our students get to hang out together, ask questions, connect with each other.
It's such a fun place.
Yeah Yeah, absolutely.
So thank you, Sophie and for that question.
But yeah, we wanted to talk about optimism and also expressions that go along with this.
And you can see how it bleeds into our culture by the language that we use.
So yeah, we talked about sitcom endings.
Also, another one I was thinking of was Modern Family.
You know, it's always like at the end of a sitcom when There's a little montage.
There's music.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And there's a voiceover.
Yeah, for sure.
And Sophie mentioned some things.
Maybe we'll go into these phrases later, right, Michelle, later in the episode?
Okay, good.
So yeah, so good.
Yeah.
And I think about this also just in the way that we greet people.
Because I started a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a student and I said, how are you doing?
And she actually told me that she wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer honestly or not because she's used to hearing people say oh i'm good so she said oh it's really and then and she started giving me the honest answer and then she stopped herself and she said oh i mean i'm good like i guess i'm just supposed to say i'm good and i was yeah i thought that that was interesting that's really interesting yeah i think a lot of students have asked about this over the years right michelle it's uh right is is how are you doing more of a more of a greeting or is it more of a question yeah right yeah um so but i definitely think that goes along with our culture of optimism lindy do you think this can ever get exhausting do you ever feel pressure to be optimistic or have a good attitude yeah for sure i do and sometimes you just want to be authentic right because it's not possible that we're always 100 positive all of the time um So, yeah, it can get exhausting, especially not so much about the cultural piece, what is normal in our culture.
It's more about the personality piece.
Like, if you are a personality that people consider positive and people kind of are like oh, why are you not being positive right now?
That can be exhausting, I would say.
Yeah.
Well, I just was kind of thinking a little bit about celebrities.
I mean, if you were a celebrity and – or just any – and maybe not even a celebrity, but somebody – you know in your town who people know well from you, know you work at a certain store and everybody knows you um, and you're having a bad day, and especially with celebrities people, it's like they're not supposed to have bad days, they're just supposed to be thankful for whatever they have.
And if you see them and they look like they're in a bad mood, then they can get bad press and that must be exhausted.
That must be really hard.
It must be really hard.
Or you know the shots, the photos and in kind of the tabloid magazines, and oh, it must be so exhausting.
Being a celebrity, i can't imagine yes yes, exactly.
Um, so i mean, even with my kids, i i try to tell my son it's okay to be sad about something like i.
I i want him to really experience his emotions and learn how to handle them.
So I'll say, you know, Oh, it's okay to feel that way.
This comes from reading all the, all the parent information about.
Oh, you're supposed to say this as a parent, which is a whole other story for another day.
But yeah, like just trying to share that as it's okay to experience emotions.
I think it's important to be realistic, get comfortable with emotions, but yeah, one of the things I like to think about is that everything comes and goes.
So you know, if you're having a bad day, maybe the next day you'll have a good day, and you have to realize that there are always going to be these changes.
Yeah.
I think this is a generational shift that we're seeing, that I.
I like it a lot that parents now are showing kids kind of the reality, and you can compare it to kind of like the 1950s, post-World War II, where there was kind of this the, the flight to the suburbs right, and yeah every, and people were getting jobs and the economy was starting to grow.
And i feel like a lot of the tv shows that came out of that time were even more glossed over in a positive way, like leave it to beaver and all of these shows right, that portray this perfect family and and always positive and everything.
But now i think parents are kind of showing like that's not reality right, and we need to teach our kids to recognize a range of emotions.
Yeah yep yep yeah, exactly.
So that's that's important.
Yeah okay anyways um michelle what, what else?
What's next?
So today we're gonna really dive into some expressions in culture that go around that go along with this culture of optimism in the us.
Um, positive expressions.
So lindsay, what's the first one?
Okay, so this idea of looking for the silver lining it's everywhere guys, right.
So finding something positive about a negative experience everywhere, we talk about it all the time.
Yes, exactly.
And then there's also look on the bright side.
So, even if something's bad oh, we'll look on the bright side like, don't get so upset about what's really happening, let's look on the bright side.
Mm, hmm.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Or the expression all's well that ends well.
Is this from Shakespeare?
Yes, this is Shakespeare.
But it really it's.
I mean, I don't I'm assuming Shakespeare started this expression, because that's from a long time ago.
It's the name of a play, right?
It's the name of a play, exactly.
That's what I thought, yeah.
But the idea is that, oh, everything's fine as long as the ending is okay.
When in fact really the experience could be traumatic and the ending is okay.
And then you're just supposed to be like, oh okay, this was fine.
Which is probably a lot of these TV shows is what happened in the old days.
Or like this one, right?
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Um, this also ties into, like our narrative around.
You know the economy around.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
You know an entrepreneurial environment that encourages entrepreneurship.
Um this all is informed kind of.
The economy, that's kind of has has thrived over the last like 50 years.
Right.
Michelle.
Yeah yeah, that's a good point, yeah.
So when life gives you lemons, so something sour, something that might you know it might not like um, make something sweet out of it, put some sugar in it, although i would argue that that's not making it as healthy.
Anyway, you would say extra calories, right.
Um, so right, but um, lemonade is delicious, so.
But the point here is that that expression is i feel like that one might be one of the more common ones used on this list.
I think they're all pretty common, right?
Yeah.
I feel like these are everywhere in our culture, in our narrative, in our TV shows, our books.
They, they're everywhere.
I mean, and the next one, I think, did you and I talk about this?
Everything happens for a reason or just idea of fate.
I have talked about it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like being careful about, like fade and what you attribute to fade and what you attribute to your own self-direction.
No, maybe not.
I don't know.
No, no, no.
I think so.
It sounds, I do recall having a recent conversation with you about this.
Okay.
Well, this expression, everything happens for a reason, right?
Don't be upset about what's going on because it's part of a bigger plan or a bigger picture, right?
Also really common.
Right?
Definitely.
And there are many, many more.
But so this is a quick list of a whole bunch of them that are very common.
So Lindsay, I don't know if we already mentioned, but on Spotify we do these polls as a way to interact with our listeners.
Right, Lindsay?
Yeah, we want to know.
And today we have a great question that's super relevant from today's episode.
We want to hear your voice, right?
So if you go over to, if you listen on Spotify today, you can check out the poll.
And what is our poll question for today?
All right.
We want to know, we want to know, are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Oh, this will be really interesting to see how it breaks down worldwide for our listeners.
I'm super excited.
Definitely me too.
So let us know.
All right.
So let's do a role play to use these expressions now.
So here we go.
In this role play, you were hoping to get a new dog, but someone else got it first.
You found one you really liked.
Oh, that's crushing.
Oh, no.
Okay.
Here we go.
Oh, Michelle, he was so cute.
I'm so bummed.
Well, look on the bright side.
Someone got the dog.
The dog is happy and safe.
You will find another dog you like.
Well, that's true.
I guess I should look for the silver lining, shouldn't I?
Yeah, just keep getting out there and you'll find another one.
Everything happens for a reason.
Maybe this dog wouldn't have gotten along with Kiefer.
Yeah, I guess you never know.
Oh, wow.
I see there's another rescue dog event next week.
Maybe your new dog is there.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Yeah, if i get a dog there, it will be great.
All's well that ends well, all right.
So we're so positive here.
Positivity here, i love it, i love it.
Um, and so this one look on the bright side.
Do you feel like you use it michelle, some like in your everyday conversation?
Would you say yourself personally look on the bright side, i might, i might, but not too frequently.
What do you think?
Yeah, I agree.
It's out there.
I mean, I hear it.
I might not personally use it.
It almost feels a little too neat and tidy, right?
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah, as we've been saying.
But guys, it makes total sense.
It's communicative.
It's positive.
So you said Michelle well, look on the bright side, and then you're going to say something positive after that.
Right.
A good point.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And then you said that's true.
I guess I should look for the silver lining.
So the silver lining is the positive part.
So, this being that the dog is rescued, somebody is getting him and he's he's, he's safe and you should be happy about that.
Yeah, I love it.
And then you said, yeah, just keep getting out there and you'll find another one.
Everything happens for a reason.
So you're saying maybe the reason is that this dog wouldn't have meshed well with Kiefer, right?
With my current dog that I'm going to keep, of course.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Yes, yes, exactly.
And then I look and i see maybe a sign or something that there's another rescue dog event um, and so i said when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
So even though you're sad, now we can make something sweet and go to another place to try and find you, your dog.
Yeah exactly, and i feel like with that one we also use it in a way of you like if um, i'm trying to think of like if you lose a job right you, let's say you're an employee And you lose a job, and then you decide you get fired and it doesn't seem obvious why you got fired.
There's no explanation for it.
And you say to yourself, I'm never going to work for anyone again, for example.
Then you go and start your own business and you make something so much better.
It's like a creative.
Yeah.
When you create something good for yourself yeah, something bigger and better comes out of a negative outcome is kind of the way i see that phrase.
Right yeah, i think that.
Yeah, that's a good point lindsay, i think that that's great.
Um, and then you said yeah, if i get a dog there, it will be great.
All's well that ends well.
So it's like, oh well if, if i get a dog in the end, it's fine about this one exactly, all right.
Any final thoughts, any takeaway for our listeners today?
Well, first off, i want to know do you think you're going to get another dog ever?
Oh yeah, of course.
We'll get another dog.
It's just that maybe in a couple of years, it's expensive having a dog, Michelle.
Oh, two dogs.
Doggy daycare.
Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
All right.
Well, so the takeaway is yeah, we have to of understand how this fits into the culture and realize that it's okay to have your real feelings and we don't want to be that annoying optimist.
Yeah either um, because sometimes it can be irritating if somebody, if you can't experience your real feelings.
Oh for sure, for sure um yeah, i'm watching this show and i don't maybe you've seen it it's called dead.
To me, it's uh kind of a dark comedy with uh, christina applegate.
I love her yes, me too okay so the um, the judy character.
She reminds me of someone who's like, ridiculously optimistic in situations where you should never be optimistic.
Yes, It's hilarious.
She's so funny.
And she's almost like a cartoonish character because.
Yes, she is.
Yeah.
So it's it's almost like it's a misfit.
It doesn't make sense in those situations to be optimistic.
But I would say in general, American culture is pretty positive.
We have this narrative.
It'll be interesting to see in the next hundred years.
Where does that go?
Does that continue as we age as a culture?
Right.
And an economy.
Yes.
Yes.
So much can change this outlook.
So definitely stay tuned.
Yeah, guys, for sure.
Go participate in our Spotify poll.
We want to know, are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Let us know.
Good stuff, Michelle.
You have a good day.
All right, you too.
Bye, Lindsay.
Bye.
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