One question

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking because of recent personal problems involving the breakup with my ex. Of course, I’ve done a characteristically bad job with things. I can always be counted on to do the exact wrong thing in any situation and come off looking like an asshole to everyone involved. One thing I was wondering, just randomly is: who do you think are happier pessimists or optimists? If you had to choose either which would you choose and which do you think are better off in the long run?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 5th, 2003 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • Easy: optimists get to be happy, pessimists get to be right.

    Seriously, I recall hearing about some sort of study which claimed that depressed people were more accurate in their predictions about the future than non-depressed people. Being right didn't make the depressed people less depressed. Perhaps depression is simply a malfunction in an organism's naturally occuring bias toward optimism. If a person (or a coyote or a manatee or a mole rat) is realistic rather than optimistic, surely that interferes with his or her chances of reproducing.
  • Col. James Braddock
    Chris,

    As for false happiness. I hate to use the term because I despise it as much as you may, but ignorance is bliss. The person that is happy under false pretenses is still happy. Now if you mean that false happiness means they are acting like they are happy when they aren't. That is another thing.. that person is not optimistic by any means. (notice i did not use the term that refers to a static way of being)
  • Col. James Braddock
    drublood, you are right that people are dynamic and always changing. It is also true that some people develop certain personality traits that make them more or less likely to perceive a positive outcome to a situation. While I would be hesitant to label myself one or the other, people often display the traits of acting optimistically or pessimistically.
  • There's a book I was reading...Learned Optimism. You should have a look.
  • There's no such thing as a pessimist or an optimist. People are dynamic, and those two terms describe static ways of being.
  • What if its based on false happiness?
  • Optimists are happier. If they are disappointed by the outcome of a situation, they look can always forward to the future toward the bright side of things. I'd rather be an optimist and happy and sometimes disappointed. A pessimist never expects anything good to happen.
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