Is pessimism a defense mechanism? The HR director at my new job asserted that it is.
People who are pessimists don't run the risk of getting hurt by plans gone awry. I suppose that if they believe things will go badly and then things DO go badly, they are not disappointed. They may fear that if they hope for something good to happen and it does not, they have to deal with the problem of how to confront the disappointment. Of course, that requires effort. It requires thought and work.
Are pessmists just too lazy to confront their disappointments in a productive way? I leave that to others more intelligent than I to decide.
Pessimists and optimists are born, not created. Look around you. There are those who are optimists in spite of any string of bad luck or in spite of their circumstances. Maybe it's the optimists who are lazy 'cause they don't take the time to review the real horror of their situation! Figure THAT one out, eh?! There are plenty of people who are in dire straits but they're still smiley and still happy. A pessimist would say, "What the hell for? There's no point to it." An optimist would say the same thing about a pessimist, of course!
Still, the pessimist has a good defense mechanism. Just assume everything is fucked and you'll be right quite a bit of the time.
On the other hand, an optimist can look at all the same problems in their lives and assume that everything is still pretty good, okay, and all right and better yet, they're going to improve at any moment!
Gotta love that!
Now and then, you'll see an optimist who has lived with let-downs for an exceptionally long time and they start to exhibit some of the behaviors of the pessimist for a while. But as soon as circumstances improve, they are right back to their usual optimistic self. The pessimist, on the other hand, waits for things to go to hell in a handbasket, of course.
I was born an optimist and raised in a pessimistic envrionment. I learned all the right behaviors of a pessimist. Over the last few years as I've gotten out of that environment, I've been able to realize that maybe I'm an optimist after all. I should rephrase though. I THINK I'm an optimist. The jury is still out on it! We'll see what the verdict is if my life goes to shit for some reason!
--Wag--
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Who knows where my brain will end up today? It just wanders without direction. Good luck tracking it down.
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About Me
- Wag
- Life has changed dramatically for me over the past few years. Reading some of the older stuff I've posted, I can see what I once was. I think I've progressed somewhat. I hope to continue to learn and grow.
2 comments:
Hey, Wag.
"On the other hand, an optimist can look at all the same problems in their lives and assume that everything is still pretty good, okay, and all right and better yet, they're going to improve at any moment!
Gotta love that!"
That assumption that things can get better is the one that makes the difference between people who get depressed and those who don't--and in the greater extreme, those who kill themselves and those who don't. Your are right, too, that optimism has a lot to do with it. Myself, I've settled on an attitude of "This are fucked as usual, but we'll probably get through it to something better."
I meant "You are right *environment* has a lot to do with it."
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