Table of Contents
Introduction
Not long ago while speaking to a group of young people, I shared a story about two identical twin boys who could not be more opposite in their attitudes. One of the boys was an incurable optimist and the other one was a complete pessimist. The parents of these two twin boys were worried about the extremes of behavior and attitude. They finally decided to take the boys to see a psychologist. The psychologist observed them for a period of time and then concluded that they had a solution for helping the boys. His staff proceeded to fill a room with all the toys, games, electronics, and gadgets that a little boy could want. They put the pessimist twin in this room and allowed him to have free reign of all the toys and gadgets.
Across the hall, they had another room that they filled with horse manure. They put the optimistic twin in that room. The psychologist, along with the parents of the twins, observed both boys through one-way mirrors. The pessimistic twin continued to be a pessimist, even in the midst of a room full of toys. He complained and fussed stating that he had no one to play with. Not long after, they went to look in on the optimistic twin and were completely astounded to find him digging through the horse manure with his hands and a bright smile on his face.
The psychologist ran into the room and asked what on earth the boy was doing. He replied that with all that manure, he was sure there had to be a pony in the room somewhere! Do you see the difference in these twin boys? The point is that whether you have a positive attitude or a negative attitude, you make the choice in how you perceive your surroundings and your life.
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Let’s Start with Basics…
“Is the glass half empty or half full?” For optimists, it will always be half full, while for pessimists it will always be half empty. The glass analogy is just a common expression used to determine one’s worldview as well as show a clear distinction between optimism and pessimism. However, in real life, it is much more complex to define the borderline between these two mental attitudes. Moreover, it is also difficult to answer what beliefs one must hold since each side has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this chapter, we will discuss each mental attitude in detail.
Is Positive Mindset a key to Success and Happiness?
Nowadays, positive mindset is everything. The techniques on how to think positively and achieve success are taught everywhere, promoted on every social media platform, published in various articles, and overall considered as a key to happy life. We are told to hold a smile on our faces regardless of how challenging life can be and how many obstacles we have to go through. We always have to look for positive outcomes in any situation no matter how bad and hard it is. Moreover, it is also common not to show your problems and struggles to other people because we want others to believe that everything is fine. Instagram platform is a good example of optimistic mindset, because majority of its users “document” their successful and happy lives, tell stories on how they did not give up, how they always believed they would achieve their dreams and goals as well as motivate their followers to follow their dreams and take only the best from their lives.
In many situations, being an optimist is quite essential. The positive mindset helps us to believe in ourselves and not lose hope. For example, if an optimistic individual does not have high GPA and wants to get accepted into dream school, that individual will work hard day and night regardless of the difficulty level and judgment from others believing that one day acceptance letter will arrive.
Moreover, optimistic individuals behave similarly when it comes to dating. They will not be heartbroken in case of rejection, will be able to quickly move on and keep searching for perfect match. In some cases, if they fall in love with someone, they will do everything to win that person’s heart. This strategy may be successful and bring good results. We are often attracted to positively minded people due to their openness, positivity, and bright attitude.
Optimists can be characterized as people who believe that life is full of pleasant surprises and always build big plans for the future. They are dreamers. From medical perspective, optimists have a better health. Their bodies and minds are not under constant stress which does not lead to stress on immune system and development of chronic diseases. Due to positive mindset, optimists always look good and healthy as they are always ready for new adventures.
What is the dark side of optimism?
At the same time, optimists are quite often seen as overconfident, delusional, and careless which may create problems. For example, it has been proved that more optimistic people than anyone else fall for scammers because their mindset just does not allow them to think negatively. In other words, their positive attitude towards everything will prevent them from believing that someone who promised them something rewarding will cause harm. Optimistic individuals live by the principles of being calm, relaxed, and positive about their surroundings. They prefer not to worry about what will happen tomorrow. It also explains why optimists do not have any life-long savings and/or worry about their retirement plans.
The loans from banks and other companies seem more appealing to optimists. They easily take loans not worrying about returning procedures. They just want to enjoy their life at the present moment and solve problems that bother them now. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, many of optimistic loan holders are unable to pay back.
They may also invest money into financial pyramids, cryptocurrency, or some other projects that an average person would not trust. Optimists genuinely believe in what they are being told without doing any background check or asking someone they trust for second opinion. According to their inner beliefs, they just invest money into a happy new life full of opportunities. Overall, optimistic individuals may show traits of being careless, delusional, immature, and irresponsible in some situations.
Very seldom, optimists think about potential problems and challenges. They may just simply ignore a certain problem until it will reach the most critical stage. Or, they can just leave the problem the way it is and expect it to eventually disappear.
Optimistic individuals are also inconsiderate about their own health. They do not like making annual check-up appointments. They prefer to ignore any noticeable symptoms believing they will just disappear or that it is nothing serious. They do not like visiting doctors because they believe they cannot get a serious disease and be diagnosed with something dangerous. That is why many diseases are discovered on critical stages when doctor cannot do much or is unable to help at all.
How can Pessimism be Defined?
Pessimists are usually disliked by many people due to their monotonous negative mindset, lack of hope, and overall negative approach to everything. However, unlike optimists, they get into unpleasant situations much less due to inability to trust other people and seeing bad intentions in every offer. For example, if they leave their house, pessimists will take with them umbrella and pepper spray. “Umbrella is for potential rain because entire day cannot just be nice and sunny. While the pepper spray is for potential self defense because streets cannot be safe at any time of the day,” a pessimist might think.
The usage of umbrella and pepper spray may be exaggerating but the general idea is to show the reader how much pessimists do overthink and mistrust the world on daily basis. They will never go on vacation without a full bag of medications because someone will get sick for sure, will not leave their children and pets without supervision because something bad may happen, will not go to casino because they will lose all their savings, and will not invest their money into any project like every optimist would do because it is most likely a scam. There can be numerous examples of what optimistic individual would do while a pessimist will refuse to due to negative attitude.
When it comes to making plans for the future, pessimist will always analyze every single detail and think of every possible outcome. One can even do an entire background research on each issue and gather all information together before making a final decision. Then one will carefully weigh all pros and cons of each situation. As previously said, a pessimist sees suspicious motives and hidden bad intentions in every single situation.
In case of any health issues, even if it is something minor and insignificant, a pessimistic individual will immediately go to see the doctor. One will carefully follow all the instructions given by doctors, take all prescribed medications as well as follow a healthy life style to avoid problems in the future. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about optimistic individuals. Statistically, it has been proved that pessimists live longer than optimists do. That is because pessimistic individuals are very overprotective and careful with their lives and their decisions which often saves them from potential danger.
The sad part of pessimism
Based on previous statements, it can be concluded that pessimism is not such a horrible type of attitude because it carries its own advantages and can be helpful in some situations. Regardless of constant overthinking and mistrust, pessimists achieve some victories because they are more protective and careful about their lives. However, having a negative mindset can also make an individual unhappy and unable to achieve success. For example, if a man with pessimistic attitude was dumped by his partner; in the future, he may not want to build a new healthy relationship. He will hold a strong belief that all relationships end badly and love simply does not exist. If an individual was not accepted into one’s dream school, one may not want to apply to other schools thinking of himself as a failure, considering his hard work worthless, and continuation of education a useless decision. As can be noted, pessimists are greatly affected by failures and challenges. They see them as permanent barriers to success, happiness, and achievement of goals.
Quite often pessimistic individuals work at low paying jobs without any opportunities, hold positions that do not fully open their potential, and accept harsh treatment from their bosses. They do not want to step out their comfort zone and seek for better job opportunities because their negative attitude tells them that their current position is the only available and suitable job. Meanwhile, pessimists believe that all other jobs are not meant for them because they lack certain qualities, not good enough, do not have enough experience or there will not be enough space for them in the new company. Overall, pessimistic mindset acts as a prevention mechanism towards changing one’s regular life for something better, new, and full of exciting opportunities.
Many individuals try to avoid having pessimists in their social circles because they do not want to constantly hear negative thoughts and opinions. Moreover, the chronic stress, which is common to all individuals with negative mindset used as defence mechanism from potential hardships and problems, creates a negative impact on the overall health. Thus, even if pessimist will live longer than optimist, one will suffer from many developed illnesses as well as from the imaginary ones. Quite often pessimists may self-diagnose themselves with certain illnesses and will continue to hold a strong belief that this illness is progressing every single day even if in reality it is not.
Is it better to be Optimist or Pessimist?
Every single human starts his life with optimistic mindset. Majority of parents believe that their child is unique and talented. The faith in their child gives that child self-confidence and hope for bigger as well as brighter future. As the child grows older and becomes mature adult, the goals set in distant childhood remain unachieved and dreams just remain dreams. This is how a person transforms from optimist to pessimist. At this stage of life, one may feel that life just passes by without any purpose.
It is often believed that in order to become pessimist, you need to learn how to be optimist beforehand. In different stages of life, an individual can be optimist and pessimist. For instance, at some point of one’s life, an individual with positive mindset may experience disappointment and slowly turn into pessimist. But somewhere deep inside, that individual still has hope that one day everything will become alright.
There are also individuals who call themselves realists. They do not have such strong expressions of pain and sadness towards failures like pessimists tend to do. Realists see the world from realistic perspective not believing in miracles like some optimists do. They do not exaggerate situations nor undervalue what they have. They always seek for the healthy borderline between positive and negative attitudes. Realists are seen as people with wisdom who will not show off to others and will not force their beliefs on others. They will be glad to express their worldview on particular situation but will allow others to make their autonomous decision. Realists believe that future is exciting, but yet unknown. They are seeking to obtain new experiences and feel new emotions. Meanwhile, they regard past as a sequence of life lessons that allowed them to gain present experience and not repeat the same mistakes again.
Psychologists believe that it is better to search for the healthy borderline between optimism and pessimism. For each particular situation, there should be a unique solution. In some cases, you need to be direct and “just do it” like every optimist would do, while in other cases, it would be reasonable to think carefully and weigh every advantage and disadvantage, which pessimist prefer to do.
One sees the world from bright spectrum while another sees black and gray shades. If you want to be initiative, make big plans, fail but never give up, then optimistic mindset is for you. If you are seeking for apathy, overthinking, monotonous routine then pessimistic mindset is more relatable to your beliefs. You can also be a realist! It is all in your hands!
