OPTIMISM vs POSITIVITY
People sometimes ask if I think of myself as an optimistic person or as a pessimistic one. To be honest, I don’t think of myself either way. The reason for this is that neither makes any sense to me.
I feel like pessimism (tending to see the worst aspects of things or believing the worst outcome is likely) is silly and a waste of time. Pessimism seems needlessly stressful and like the unwarranted addition of a kind of meta-obstacle where, of course, challenges already abound.
Optimism, on the other hand, (confidence in a positive outcome) seems equally indefensible, and a wee bit crass too. In fact, unless you’re a devout religious type I don’t see how you could even arrive at optimism. Seems to me optimism requires, at the very least, the dogmatic denial of both history and statistics. No? Ignoring that things can and do go terribly wrong all the time (that the history of our planet, our species, and our civilization isn’t essentially a long list of great catastrophes) – all while pretending that the odds are somehow in your favour – seems less enlightened and more a deliberate misevaluation of all of the abundant, available, and well-understood evidence.
In contrast to those stances I’d say that positivity is my preferred frame of mind. Positivity may seem like a feature of optimism but I see it as a different and very separate creature entirely. Positivity, as I see it, is optimism but without the blind faith. Optimism allows one to feel they can take it easy, knowing the deck is stacked, that their team is the dominant one and the rightful victor, and that everything will ultimately go to plan. Positivity, on the other hand, takes reality into account, permitting a future unknown. Positivity appreciates that all things deteriorate and can do so both rapidly and unexpectedly. Positivity accepts this reality while observing that sustainability and resilience are also possible.
Positivity knows not that things will always pan out in the end but that the world and our lives are change – dynamic systems teeming with the amazing, the beautiful, the unexpected, and the ridiculous – and that tomorrow may bring, if you’re open to it, another chance to discover and to build upon what’s there.
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