The Optimist & Pessimist: A love story
I have a track record of psyching myself out.
Ben told me the other day to approach matters with optimism instead of searching for doomed scenarios or unproven obstacles to stress over.
I told him, “I understand, but my best quality is pessimism.”
He laughed, adding, “True.”
That’s the stark difference between he and I. I’m often the moon to his sun; the hard to his easy; the cry to his laugh.
So I’ve been thinking about it some more — pessimism, that is — and why I turn to it by default. The quickest, simplest answer is that pessimism serves as my guard. If I expect a bad response, then I won’t be so bothered by the rotten tomatoes thrown at me by my booing audience while I’m on stage delivering my monologue. I might even pat myself on the back for having such sharp instincts to rely on. Right?
Then again, — and again quite simply — the pessimism might keep me from working hard enough to earn a positive response, one with hoots and whistles and sweet applause. Instincts be damned.
Optimism: what a concept, what a challenge.
But for me, for Ben, I’m up for the challenge.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Well, I discovered this year that I’m an optimistic fake. I pretend that I’m really optimistic in that I believe and work for the best… but deep down in my core lies my pessisism. Like you I am working on it too.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I agree, pessimism could set you up for learned helplessness. You can’t do it, why try? Maybe if it’s linked to the person (I’m a pessimist) instead of the process or idea (I’m pessimistic about the economy under another Republican), it can become an excuse to avoid failure. Oddly, praise works that way. Person praise (You’re smart) instead of process praise (You did that well) can lead to lifelong feelings of failure because you might be afraid to find out you’re not actually smart. You challenge yourself less to make sure what you do reinforces the idea that you’re smart. The little things you learn as a parent. No wonder it’s so hard!