Jenny (who’s a confirmed optimist) thinks I’m a pessimist
because I seem to pay more attention to bad news than good news, and I tend to
conjure up doomy scenarios.
I don’t think I’m a pessimist at all. If I pay more
attention to bad news it’s because firstly it’s more dramatic and secondly I
want to know what caused the bad news – the train crash or the botched
operation or whatever.
If I think for example that the Prime Minister isn’t up to
the job, that doesn’t strike me as pessimism but just a random opinion.
I don’t routinely think everything around me is going to end
badly. I can just as well believe something will end well. Like a house
purchase or an airline flight (I’ve never been afraid of flying).
But it’s hard not to be pessimistic when what’s happening
around the world is so dreadful. I have to search hard for genuinely positive
news.
In any case what others would call pessimistic, I just think
of as pointing out reality. Should I refrain from mentioning something because
it makes me look gloomy?
I think it's hard to stay optimistic at the moment! What's Jenny's secret? And does she have a dramatically good news story up her sleeve on the scale of the Nepal floods, or the looming WW3?
ReplyDeleteSx
I'm a pessimist for sure. I know that. Hard to be optimistic when you see so much bad all around you.
ReplyDeleteI just have to laugh that my Oxford ROM dictionary includes "Eeyorish" as a real word—I presume in Britain, not North America.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of America, many of us are desperately counting down the days until the midterm elections, in the hope of breaking the Republican Party's majority in the two houses of the Capital Building, because Congress has been super-useless in being a check and balance on the the stupid president.