My Optimistic Perspective

I'm a pessimistic person. I look at my life and the world exactly as it is. I expect the worst at all times. People, scientists, psychologists, whatever, have all labeled this as unhealthy and could even lead to depression and an unbalanced life. But think about this: what's the end result of having a pessimistic viewpoint? What's the worst that could happen?

I quote George Will: "The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." which leads to my argument. Being pessimistic is far more optimistic than being optimistic. Crazy?! Actually, not that crazy if you think about it. Consider your view on life. Do you expect the worst at all times or do you constantly have faith that something good will eventually happen? Now consider this scenario:

Imagine taking a test after studying for hours and hours. You take the test with an optimistic attitude because you (think you) know the material extremely well. You walk out with a smile and think that was an easy A. Putting aside the psychological effects that could affect your test taking ability, you get a D. Not quite what you expected. But now look at what has happened; your optimistic attitude has suddenly dropped to depression! Think about the same scenario except this time, replace yourself with a pessimistic attitude. Assuming you have the same test taking ability, you walk out of the room and thinking how insanely difficult it was and expect a C or D at best. Your grade was a D. So naturally you would think, "I expected this". What does this mean? Relatively, your "hope meter" has dropped a little (if any) at most whereas if you were optimistic, it would have dropped a considerable amount. This means the test would not have affected you psychologically; at least it shouldn't!

This doesn't work in just one way; imagine if you got an A on the test. If you were optimistic, you would say "I expected this" so your hope meter will not have gone up (nor gone down). If you expected a C or D at best and see an A, how would you feel? I would feel very, very, very happy. Once again, relatively, my hope meter has gone up which is a good thing.

My argument is very similar to the Precautionary Principle (and Pascal's Wager, but not as flawed as that argument!). Being pessimistic cannot harm you. No matter what happens, your hopefulness can only go up whereas being optimistic can only hurt you. So, logically, the best choice is to be pessimistic because you'll be happy or neutral with every result. So try it! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.