> We know that visualizing a positive outcome can be counter-productive... [...] Those who daydream ...

There should be made a distinction between daydream and visualization. Visualization in sports psychology is a very common technique that is widely used by athletes (amateur to top tier). I had also read about visualization/imagery having positive effects on motor recovery and performance.

You're right, and there's a nuance. You absolutely have to deal with tactical threats, but be careful not to go from threat to threat, because there'll always be

I've seen businesses, especially software, do this where 99% of the company's effort was in "doing the right thing" by supporting their last product so much they were never able to put any effort into a better product. Getting out of this is where the right CEO earns their pay.

In some sense, my interpretation is to basically focus on what matters personally and in that, try to focus on the positive and to not worry about the societal issues which are out of your hand.

Even logically, most likely these societal issues are coming for everybody and what you can do is to be best prepared for them which inevitably means to focus on yourself (which is a good advice as ever at any point of time).

So why worry about societal issues and instead not just focus on what matters personally and something which you can take an action on and improve upon (Similar to Stoic philosophy maybe)

(I struggle to live by these words, Hopefully I improve, I am trying to watch negative news less nowadays and would like to focus more on hope and personal growth)

There are things one can call negative that are really realism trying to save you from very bad decisions. See the negativity of telling the boss at Theranos that the tests don't work. I've seen many a startup fail in large part because they spent their runway unwisely, as cheap tests that showed that the existing direction had structural problems were just seen as negativity speaking.

There is such thing as negativity that will ruin your mental health, but the other side is just embracing delusion. We can see examples of successful people that keep embracing the delusion and succeed. But there are many that end up in unrecoverable positions after they burn themselves to the ground in said delusion. Around me, there's far more of the latter than the former.

> I wish I had this sort of temperament

I think this is part of the problem. You think it’s a temperament, but it’s actually a skill, and skills can be developed.

Like all skills, developing it will be often difficult, frustrating, and uncomfortable, so when it’s like that you have to recognise that as part of the process. You’ll think you’re going against your nature when, in reality, you’re simply experiencing the tribulations of learning a new skill.

Source: 50 year old man who used to throw many stones at dogs on a much more regular basis.

> a life where things actually work out close to how you want them

This is almost nobody, by the way. It's another one of the illusions that has gotten worse with social media.

I think this "temperament" (or whatever you want to call it) _is_ actually a privilege, to be honest. If you have a family and you depend on things to go a certain way to keep your family from being out on the street, you _must_ consider the bads or possible bads of the world. You must allow yourself to be distracted by distractions so you can keep an eye on everything that affects you. To not do so is irresponsible and you put your family and your livelihood at risk.

If I'm sitting pretty on more income than I need with very few obligations, sure, I can just "focus on the path" and "ignore the distractions". But how many people have that luxury?

- Cognitively I know it's better to just focus on the future

I think you should challenge that assumption first. In my opinion, there is a lot of merit to the "Live in the now" philosophy, instead of always ruminating (or contemplating) about the past and the future. Even with goals, I have been often advised to focus more on the tasks / steps to achieve them, rather than the end results.