The irrationally positive brain

Many of us are not aware of our optimistic tendencies. Data clearly show us that most people overestimate their prospects for proffessional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinairy gifted; miscalculate their likely life span; expect to be healthier then their peers; hughely underestimate their likelihood of divorce, cance, and unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will be better then those of 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.

See for more on this subject:
The Optimism Bias: A tour of the Irrationally Posive Brain, by Tali Sharot.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias