Optimism
The Guardian had a piece where a self-described pessimist attempted to become an optimist. Spoiler alert: he’s able to change his outlook. (I’m thinking that if Tim had not been moderately successful, he wouldn’t have spent 800 or so words talking about the experiment. So I guessed the ending.)
That’s all optimism or pessimism is… an outlook. He writes near the end of the article: “Once you accept that at least a portion of your pessimism is just a story you tell yourself – and an inaccurate one at that – it’s hard to hang on to it.” But the opposite is true, too.
Optimism is just a story you tell yourself — and an inaccurate one at that, too.
I spent the last year taking 15 minutes out of every day to better myself. And I really do feel like I’ve improved my life, either with new knowledge or a new way of seeing the world. I’ve rounded up new hobbies and joined groups. But I thought I would end the year somehow more optimistic. A sunnier person. I thought it was inevitable as I read book after book on happiness psychology.
But that didn’t happen. I’m still Melissa. And I’m still fairly pessimistic, though clearly there has to be some optimism in there or I wouldn’t believe I could better myself. Pessimism is just the story I tell myself. It’s interesting that I would choose to tell myself that story; that it would still feel true after spending a year listening to and thinking about other types of stories.
But the pessimism one fits me like a favourite coat. One that I believe I can take on and off but still opt to wear out into the cold, cold world.
It’s the end of a decade; the first decade where I spent every year in it blogging. Isn’t that a strange thought? From the beginning of 2010 until the end of 2019–I captured a decade of my life with words.
Cheers to 2020.
6 comments
Happy New Year!
I think that pessimism is only partly an attitude…and it has to do more with how your mind creates possible outcomes for situations and how you weigh the resulting consequences. Some people never consider the negative outcome. Some people can’t see past the potential problems.
An example: I drove the family car until I gathered enough money to buy my own. My parents considered economies and their financial situations and determined that car ownership was a luxury that I would have to provide myself. My FIL, however, acted as financier for cars for all of his kids, because he didn’t want the liability to fall on him if any of the kids were to cause an accident. If the cars were not in his name, he couldn’t get sued. That never occurred to anyone in our family…but then, we didn’t grow up with my husband or his brother, the troublemakers.
So while I think you can change your ability to quiet the pessimistic views, I don’t think you can change the way your mind operates completely.
I’m a defensive pessimist (and I was quite excited when I discovered that term about a year ago – finally, a name for that *thing* my brain does!). It’s a way of managing anxiety that involves playing through all the worst-case scenarios in a situation and allowing a chance to prepare for those. I find it very useful – as I’ve gotten older and better at sorting through what’s straight-up anxiety and what things I’ve got a real reason for being concerned about, I like that it gives me a chance not to just react in a tough moment. Instead, I have a plan that I’ve considered. It helps me not to say/do things I’ll wind up regretting later.
I found it particularly useful during infertility treatments. I’d play through scenarios and, while there’s nothing that can really prepare a person for the body-blow of a miscarriage or other negative results, it did help immensely that I’d considered what I wanted to do in those situations, weighed the pros/cons of actions when I was less emotional, etc.
All that to say that I think pessimism/optimism are stories we tell ourselves and can probably be changed to an extent, but personality/situation also really factor in.
And best wishes for 2020 to you and yours!
I love this post so much. Sometimes it feels like I am being drowned by people trying to force optimism when my natural inclination is at least a bit pessimistic. I prefer to call it realistic 🙂 May 2020 be good to us all!
I do agree that both pessimism and optimism are merely outlooks, and I also agree that one can probably change from pessimist to optimist with effort. However, I also think that most of us are one of the other from childhood on. (Don’t know if it’s entirely nature or nature or a little bit of both, although having fraternal twins who are night-and-day different leads me to believe that the tendency to be one or the other is likely mostly inherent in an individual’s personality.)
I’m kind of tired of the “people with this outlook/trait/etc.” succeed advice. I think a lot of things are hard wired and very hard to change. I overheard someone at work bragging about how he told his adult kids ”there are lots of jobs out there you just have to go get them.” Well, yes, young people should not sit and wait and expect opportunities to come to them. But some people are natural salespersons and others like me are definitely not. Should otherwise highly qualified people not be hired be they don’t sell themselves? I mean if you’re hiring car salespersons, yes. But other careers? Similarly, my boss (no kids) recently gave me an article she cut out from the WSJ (I think) saying how kids with “grit” go farther in life. I don’t see how this is helpful—to a large extent I think that’s something innate. It’s like saying “just be born an attractive white male who’s smart and likeable and has wealthy parents and you’ll go far!!” And some things just come easy for people. For me, academic things—exams etc. Whereas for my sport I had to work really hard to overcome “stage fright” yet I knew people who just rolled out of bed and never gave it a thought and were naturally “on” at a competition.
So yeah I’m annoyed at all the “be like this!” advice. And I have read my fair share of self improvement/help books etc. I guess I’m kind of over it.