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The differences between optimism and pessimism
The differences between optimism and pessimism
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The world is made up of optimist and pessimists, and the survival of human beings and our well-being requires a balance between optimism and pessimism. Disproportionate pessimism makes life unbearable; however, too much optimism can advance to dangerously hazardous behaviors. The Optimism and pessimism approach is expecting a positive or negative future outcome, a recognizable way of reasoning is best conceptualized as continuity with many amounts of optimism and pessimism. Successful living requires a great balance between optimism and pessimism. Too much optimism may embolden one to take uncalculated risks that will lead to inadvertent and reckless behaviors, which may conclude in a catastrophe. On the contrary, worrying too much about …show more content…
The approach is usually lengthy in order to accommodate the attitude of hope for forthcoming conditions evolving as optimal. The vaster concept of optimism is the understanding that all of nature, past, present, and future, functions by the law of optimization. The word optimism originated from the Latin word optimum, which means "best". Optimism is a deposition or tendency to view the more favorable side of events or conditions and to await the more favorable outcomes. Optimism is the belief that good eventually overrules the evil in the world. Also, the belief that goodness defuses reality. Optimism is the attitude that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds. Optimists often have the impulse of making lemonade out of lemons, and then to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Most optimist persistently attributes benevolent motives to others and illustrate situations in the best possible light; others easily just disassociate an internal mood from external situations, no matter how tenacious. A person can be optimistic in devoirs such as expecting his or her relationship with another to be successful. Now on to pessimism, pessimism is the impulse to stress the negative or unfavorable. The belief of pessimism is that this is the worst of all possible worlds and that …show more content…
These phycologists have wondered if there are more optimist or pessimists in the world. They have made an attempt to find out what approach is greater or better. There are some advantages to optimism because it makes people feel better about life, however, there are also some advantages to pessimism in that looking at the unfortunate side of things can help some pessimists cope better with the world. Both optimism and pessimism have important roles to play the lives of everybody. Being optimist permits people to go after their goals in a positive way, to dream bigger and better dreams, which they can strive to work towards. Optimist also tend to respond better to positive feedback, and a part of being an optimist may be producing this feedback for themselves, example, thinking positive thoughts. While on the other hand, being pessimistic may help people to better acknowledge negative feedback and reduce their natural anxiety to perform better. Once again, part of the reason why pessimist generates negative thoughts is that it helps them perform a lot better. People tend to utilize both optimism and pessimism in order for them gain out of their advantages. People who are mainly concerned with growth or advancement often manifest an optimistic view, whereas those who are concerned with safety and security, or avoiding negative outcomes, focus more on pessimism in order to improve their
Optimism is a necessary quality for the average person. It allows one to strive for the best and persevere. But, can there be such thing as too much optimism? Can it blind individuals from the harsh truths of the world? The answer to both of these questions is yes; as is exemplified by the novel Don Quixote as well as numerous instances in history, Optimism overshadows the more realistic negative consequences of achieving a dream. Protagonist Alonso Quesada, self-dubbed knight-errant Don Quixote, embarks on a rather ill conceived journey in search of a quest. Upon seeing the windmills as giants, Quixote opportunistically takes advantage of the situation and attacks the harmless contraptions resulting in his inevitable defeat. However, the moment that shows the reader the optimistic
Optimism was an attractive to many because it answered a profound philosophical question: if God is omnipotent and benevolent, then why is there so much evil in the world? Optimism provides an easy way out: God has made everything for the best, and even though one might experience personal misfortune, God (via your misfortune) is still helping the greater good.
Ever hear one say, “Sometimes I’m busy making others happy, that I forget to make sure I’m okay.”? After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided I have learned that balancing both positive and negative thinking is the single most important life lesson shown throughout the book. Ehrenreich tells readers that the power of positive thinking Is undermining America and how being too positive and too optimistic, can lead to trouble. One that knows how to balance the amount of positivity and negativity will create a proper outcome for their future.
...too optimistic can result in sadness and despair. Optimism also has the power to blind us from seeing the harsh and cruel realities in life. Optimists focus exclusively on the bright side of life and tend to avoid all the cruel realities. However, when the time comes to face a harsh reality, optimists are unprepared and fail. Wiesel makes this argument to show us the negative effects of optimism. For example, the belief that drinking and driving or speeding is not going to end fatally. Optimists have the mindset of “death is something that happens to others.” Drinking and driving and speeding blind the driver from realizing there is a possibility of death. These optimistic people are the most likely to die due to the fact that they are not aware of this possibilities. Wiesel would agree that optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
This shows that positive thinking can get in the way of all your hopes and dreams. You may have an image of a life that seems perfect, but you need to be able to separate that from reality and not get the two mixed. It sometimes blinds you from the true reality. Also in the same text, it stated ‘’the pressure of positive thinking can result in suppressing any pessimistic thoughts or unpleasant emotions because they might attract bad things. You deprive yourself of access to the complete picture and the full range of emotions.
The world, through different means, will always try to degrade people’s existence, but it’s up to us to rise up and act. For Nietzsche, Beauvoir and Voltaire, people should act and take the responsibilities. According to Nietzsche, people give meaning to their life by growing spontaneously, seeking out to say ‘yes’ to life to saturate it with happiness and passion. For Beauvoir, people, especially women, give their life meaning by not condemning to immanence, instead affirming their independence and transcending themselves to justify their existence. As per Voltaire, excessive optimism fades one’s sense of responsibility, taking away his or her freedom to take productive action. For Voltaire, optimism is good only when it compels people to take action, and bad when it forces people into believing that failure is inevitable.
If someone thinks negatively towards something the outcome will not be good, and vice versa. Thinking you can achieve the American dream is a major key in doing so, and some Americans are already on the right track. In the U.S., a survey showed that 36 percent of Americans say they have achieved the dream, and another 46 percent believe they are on the path of achieving it. It is not so easy, though, to always look on the bright side. Sometimes it seems as if nothing is going right; that is when negativity occurs. People can argue that mindset has little impact on the outcome, or that it does not matter how positive a person is because some things are just not meant to be. An article, however, proves this wrong. The paper argues how negative emotions prevent humans from flourishing; it also states, “if your ratio of positive to negative emotions is greater than 2.9013 to one, you will flourish both physically and psychologically.” If a person believes in themselves, they are more likely to accomplish their
Optimism was attractive to many because it answered a profound philosophical question that mankind had been grappling with since the beginning of faith: if God is omnipotent and benevolent, then why is there so much evil in the world? Optimism provides an easy way out of this philosophical dilemma: God has made everything for the best, and even though one might experience personal misfortune, God (via your misfortune) is still helping the greater good.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the speech “Smile or Die,” she uses this speech to inform her listeners about the ideology of mandatory positive thinking and how it is not always the answer. Ehrenreich talks about what people are forced to learn and how they are forced to think: if they want something bad enough, no matter what that thing may be, that wishing for it and having a positive attitude will put it in their possession. Wanting something bad enough is all it supposedly takes, yet Ehrenreich has an opposite perspective and she educates her audience on her opinion of “thinking positively” using her own personal experiences such as cancer, background knowledge and real-life examples. She wants people to understand that being positive
I am what my parents and friends define me as a “sandbagger”. I go into tests saying, “I am going to fail. I should change my major. My world is ending.” Then, I would come out of my test saying similar phrases. More often than not I receive my scores back to find that I had successfully prepared myself for the exam, and that I can continue on panicking for the next world ending test. Grant covered this phenomenon, which I was not aware was a phenomenon, towards the end of his book. Grant calls it “The Power of Negative Thinking”. Essentially there are two major ways to prepare for handling challenges. One, strategic optimism, is where an individual anticipates the best. The second, defensive pessimism, is the opposite, where an individual excepts the worst. I am without a doubt a defensive pessimist. Grant goes on to explain, that although the pessimist is usually more anxious and less confident, they preform just as well if not better than the optimist. After reading this section I felt relieved that I was not just irrational, but there was a method to my madness so to say, even though it does drive my parents and friends crazy. Of all the interesting points made in this book, this is the one I was most excited about, because I connected with this argument on a personal
While the notion of optimism is seldom brought to attention on a daily basis, it is actually an integral part of the human experience, even among those who claim to be particularly rational. In fact, it serves as a sort of Chicken Soup for the Soul, for society. Of course, rather than being a series of inspirational books, optimism quite literally gives off the comfort of warm soup on a cold and dreary day- wafting in the possibility of hope and the sentiment that this is the “best of all possible worlds.” It is this comfort that people cling to in times of strife, be it a death of a loved one, or even something as typical as a missed bus. The prevalence of optimism began in 1710, when Gottfried Leibniz asserted that the actual world was as
“The optimism bias stands guard. It’s in charge of keeping our minds at ease and our bodies healthy. It moves us forward, rather than to the nearest high-rise rooftop.”– Sharot. In this quotation, Sharot shares her belief that we have a tendency to overestimate positive events that will happen in our life, this is the optimism bias; and this tendency keeps us living. It is also a long-term effect and not a short term one. Researchers have long discussed the question of why we still have an unrealistic optimism even though reality throws events at us that could change our view and believes. They have found that indeed, people tend to be optimistic about themselves, they also accept an information that has positive implication for them more easily that one that has negative implication for them. But do we have evidence that people have an unrealistically optimistic view of themselves; in other words, do they never predict that something negative will
B. Cade Massey once said, “It 's gotten to the point where people really feel pressure to think and talk in an optimistic way” (Massey). Optimism is generally seen as healthy, while pessimism is generally seen as dangerous. The difference between optimism and pessimism is a difference in perspective and mindset. An optimist has a positive perspective and cheerful mindset, while a pessimist has a negative perspective and a gloomy mindset. There are consequences to both perspectives. But which has better consequences for one’s health? Assuming that it is moderated, pessimism is healthy for a person’s well-being. Pessimism is more realistic than optimism because it prepares people for an unpredictable and possibly negative life. Pessimism is also better for expectations compared to future surprises. Pessimists are either proven right or pleasantly surprised. Pessimism is a healthier mindset to have than optimism.
Mental attitude refers to the complex mental state of a person which includes beliefs, emotions, values, and attitudes on which one’s acts certainly. Even before until now, self-help books and popular beliefs have already speculated the power of positive mental attitude in the lives of a person. Similarly, a number of theories on positive psychology may support this claim. On the basis of Seligman’s (1998) theory, pessimists tend to explain bad events that happened in their life as internal, stable, and global throughout their lives. Such people tend to develop learned helplessness and are prone to depression. Personal outlook in life, therefore, affects students’ performance. In school, study shows that pessimistic student performs less than their level of “talent” whereas optimistic student performs high (Seligman,
I believe that happiness is the key to living a good and prosperous life. Through all of the sadness and hate in the world, happiness gives me hope. It gives not only me, but others hope and joy. Happiness gives us something to hold onto, therefore we cherish it as much as we can.