NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm sure this has probably been done before, but I'm a bit of a pessimist. In my view pessimism is better than optimism for one reason. When you expect everything to go badly or fail then when it goes well or succeeds, you are always pleasantly surprised. Optimists just get disappointed. Are you miserable and slightly negative like me, or happy and sunny and optimistic? And which is better, in you view?

Middle

Although pessimists can really tick me off sometimes.

I switch back and forth depending on how serious I am about the project.

Studies have shown depressed people actually have more realistic expectations than non-depressed people.
Being happy takes a certain amount of self-delusion.

I'm generally pessimistic.

They never listen, yet I'm always right.

Well both extremes suck, I mean a person who thinks that everything will fail is annoying as is someone who believes that everything will have the best possible results in all situations. Really, optimists are happier and pessimists in my opinion at least can be more sensible so long as they are not too pessimistic. I mean a sensible pessimist will try to avoid utter failure and therefore be more secure(physically not mentally).

Pessimists. Rarely surprised, happy when they are.

Optimist. Often surprised. unhappy when they are.

I'm pessimist.

I, myself, prefer to be cautiously optimistic.

Another crappy thread, just what I thought it would be...

optimism is always better than pessimism.

at its worst, pessimism spoils every aspect of your life with always looking for the black cloud. nothing is ever good, its always temporary until the bad thing happens. it paralyzes you with the idea that nothing can work out. something bad will always happen so spoil it.

sure optimism can lead a person into unrealistic expectations that their halfassed plans will always work. but life quickly teaches you to plan better, and even if you dont learn, you still enjoy the life you have more because its still "the best of all possible worlds"

practically speaking, pessimists dont do as much with their lives. they see too many obstacles and dont enjoy the successes they have because they were never as good as they could have been. optimists look for solutions because they just KNOW a thing can be done. when it falls short of what they hoped, they dont care, life is still good.

Pessimists. Rarely surprised, happy when they are.

Optimist. Often surprised. unhappy when they are.

I'm pessimist.

You guys don't know many real optimists, do you?

I'd like to think I'm an optimist, and my life isn't a string of unhappy surprises. To me, optimism isn't just about pretending to be happy and having a smile on your face, it's TRULY looking on the "bright side" of everything, to try your best to recognize the silver lining of every cloud. The people you're probably thinking of are the people who really AREN'T optimistic, but are trying to be, which doesn't work. Those are the people you see faking smiles and saying things like "God must've intended it that way."

Optimism doesn't make a person stupider, or less sensible. For the most part, I'm pretty realistic about my expectations for things in life: I just choose to focus on the happy aspects of it instead of dwelling in the fact that things won't always go my way.

Being happy takes a certain amount of self-delusion.

Or at least a certain amount of apathy, or a mind-set that lets you take the unhappiness in the world in a way that isn't unhappy. For example, a good friend of mine is a militant environmentalist, and the fact that millions of people worldwide are starving to death and dying of AIDS makes him quite happy, because he feels that humankind is, as a whole, overpopulating the planet and causing the vast majority of ecological problems we're seeing in the world today.

I'm sure this has probably been done before, but I'm a bit of a pessimist. In my view pessimism is better than optimism for one reason. When you expect everything to go badly or fail then when it goes well or succeeds, you are always pleasantly surprised. Optimists just get disappointed. Are you miserable and slightly negative like me, or happy and sunny and optimistic? And which is better, in you view?

Pessimism tends to become a self fulfilling prophecy. Optimism doesnt, but if it did that would be a good thing. I am very much an optimist and Im sure it has something to do with how much I enjoy life and how successful I have been. It may not be everything, but it is certainly a factor. Think about it this way, how many highly successful pessimists do you know of? Pessimists generally arent successful because they see problems instead of opportunities.

optimists look for solutions because they just KNOW a thing can be done.
As do pessimists. They just know how many things can, and WILL, go wrong. Better to cover all bases.

Meh. I would think a middle-of-the-road outlook is probably most sensible.

True optimists tend to have rather unrealistic expectations. So yeah, they're often disappointed when things don't work out the way they were expecting/hoping they would.

On the other paw, I find that the expectations of a pessimist often end up being 'self-fulfilling prophecies', in a way. A pessimist expects the worst and, consciously or not, will find ways to make the worst happen. It's sad, really.

All in all, I'd rather be an optimist and be disappointed when things don't work out just how I wanted than be a pessimist and cause things to work out badly just I can feel vindicated for being a pessimist in the first.

In reality though, I'm neither.

I'm very pessimistic, for much the same reasons as the thread starter.

Optimism...i tried that once...but everything kept going wrong, so I "dropped it like a bad habit".

Pessimistic is my prefered outlook on life.

*On an unrelated note. I decided it would be a wise move not to make a "Yay! I Just Got My First Thread Closed" thread*

*On an unrelated note. I decided it would be a wise move not to make a "Yay! I Just Got My First Thread Closed" thread*
Wise move. It was SO expected it would be closed. It always happens...

Optimism isn't about deluduing yourself or kidding yourself that everything will be perfect. It's about looking for the good, finding hope and making the most of life.

Pessimsm is the opposite. It's noticing the bad, not holding out any hope and giving up on life.

With optimism you can learn from mistakes and bad experiences.

I know which one gave me depression and which one gave me the strength to fight.

Studies have shown depressed people actually have more realistic expectations than non-depressed people.



That describes me to a T.

I'm sure this has probably been done before, but I'm a bit of a pessimist. In my view pessimism is better than optimism for one reason. When you expect everything to go badly or fail then when it goes well or succeeds, you are always pleasantly surprised. Optimists just get disappointed. Are you miserable and slightly negative like me, or happy and sunny and optimistic? And which is better, in you view?
Optimists never get disappointed, because there's always a silver lining to every "bad" thing that happens. ;)

I think a healthy blend of both is best, applied with discretion.

Pure pessimism is of course bad, however, pessimists learn from their mistakes as well in order to avoid failure, besides extreme optimism could be magical thinking, just as extreme pessimism would be depression. Ultimately it all falls on wisdom enough to know when what you think is extreme.

I am as close to a pure optimist as it is possible to be, I think.

I am rarely disapointed. It is much more fun to look at the bright side :)

If someone cuts me off, well, I'm not the one who will be wrecking my car today ;)

If I get a bad grade, oh, well, I get another chance to learn the material better.

Every "bad" thing is a good thing in disguise for the true optimist.
It is not so much a delusion as a different spin on the situation.

Half of life is how we respond to what happens to us.

If we let it get us down, or lower our expectations, it just becomes dreary.

But if we have a sunny outlook on life you will be happier.

Optimists are generally heathier than pessimists physically and emotionally and mentally. (NOTE: I'm not including MANIC people) ;)

Besides, being an optimist is soooo much Fun! you get to annoy all the pessimists out there :)

I'm sure this has probably been done before, but I'm a bit of a pessimist. In my view pessimism is better than optimism for one reason. When you expect everything to go badly or fail then when it goes well or succeeds, you are always pleasantly surprised. Optimists just get disappointed. Are you miserable and slightly negative like me, or happy and sunny and optimistic? And which is better, in you view?


I'm somehwhat of an optimist in most things. I always recognize the negatives but have an outlook that the positive can be achieved.


I've dealt with dissapointments while in optimistic and pessemistic frames of mind and I'd much rather have it happen when I'm feeling positive.. at least then I still recognize other roads to take, that what has happened has happened for a reason to end up being for my own good, and that things Will get better.

When I'm negative it's like my imagination stops functioning, I trust no one, only see the bad in almost everything... and have at times lost hope and that is a feeling I don't like at all.. but I am aware those feelings will pass, and they always do.

I'd much rather live my life a "realistic" optimist.

Studies have shown depressed people actually have more realistic expectations than non-depressed people.
Being happy takes a certain amount of self-delusion.

Can you name some of those studies? Id be interested in reading them.

Another crappy thread, just what I thought it would be...

Oh i'm crying insdie. Really i am.

Oh i'm crying insdie. Really i am.
I knew you'd get that wrong. Meh. I knew it. So it goes. Nobody understands me, why would you be different...

I knew you'd get that wrong. Meh. I knew it. So it goes. Nobody understands me, why would you be different...

Oh poo. im sorry. I realise my mistake. I just expect to get criticised, being generally pessimistic. *sighs*

Oh poo. im sorry. I realise my mistake. I just expect to get criticised, being generally pessimistic. *sighs*
No worries. I wholly expected it...

I tend to be pessimistic in almost all things for the following reason. If it succeeds, then I'm delighted. If it doesn't, then I had expected it to fail anyway. It keeps me from spending too much time being perpetually disappointed.

Pessimism: Isn't it more sensible than optimism?

Being sensible is almost as boring as being pessimistic :p

I'm an optimist. I try to look at the good rather than the bad. Anyone can find faults in things. Optimists aren't always crazy. Some things really do go well and we don't need someone making it seem like a failure. Look at the bright side. Happiness is healthier than anger or depression. Heart attacks and bullets in brain are not signs of exellent health.

Prepare for the worst but hope for the best, that's my motto

Pessimism. It seems to be more accurate for me. That and I can't stand Liebniz.

Pessimists tend to be very egoistic people.
They end up dissing everything but themselves.
They also have smart-ass comments about how futile everything you do is.
They're annoying at a 200% level.
At the end of a party, they're the ones with the bloody noses.
Thus, they become even more pessimistic about life and situations and people.


Being optimistic is cool. Especially if you're realistic about your expectations.

"There is a measured 99.3% chance this will work" ==> If you're an optimistic guy, you smile and you don't bother crapping in your pants
But the pessimistic will start ranting about the 0.7% chances of failure and how it's suppose to make our lives miserable, and how he'll laugh on our graves when we're dead and we should have listened to him and stayed in bed, and so and so.

Neanderthalians & dinosaurs were probably pessimistic dudes.
Like: "Why bother inventing stuff? We're all gonna die anyway during the next ice age."
And of course, since pessimistics looove self-fullfying prophecies, they were proven right. :D

Pessimists tend to be very egoistic people.
They end up dissing everything but themselves.
They also have smart-ass comments about how futile everything you do is.
They're annoying at a 200% level.
At the end of a party, they're the ones with the bloody noses.
Thus, they become even more pessimistic about life and situations and people.


Being optimistic is cool. Especially if you're realistic about your expectations.

"There is a measured 99.3% chance this will work" ==> If you're an optimistic guy, you smile and you don't bother crapping in your pants
But the pessimistic will start ranting about the 0.7% chances of failure and how it's suppose to make our lives miserable, and how he'll laugh on our graves when we're dead and we should have listened to him and stayed in bed, and so and so.

Neanderthalians & dinosaurs were probably pessimistic dudes.
Like: "Why bother inventing stuff? We're all gonna die anyway during the next ice age."
And of course, since pessimistics looove self-fullfying prophecies, they were proven right. :D
Too bad it's not as black and white as you make it seem. Wow, I'm not even going to respond, just give a few lines from ænima:
Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.

I wanna see it all come down.
suck it down.
flush it down.

Pessimism... always expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed...
I think I'm pessimistic because I'm depressed right now, but when I'm normal, I tend not to speculate on the future.