Think Like An OPTIMIST, Plan Like A PESSIMIST!

 

Theoretically, an OPTIMIST and a PESSIMIST may seem to be poles apart BUT alas, we could be both, all rolled into one, AHA!  For now, my thoughts is NOT something new BUT allow me to tweak my age-old 'GLASS HALF-FULL GLASS HALF-EMPTY' mindset and for a lack of a better term, I'll coin this as my OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISM, sort of📗📙📘

For clarity, I am NOT exactly a subscriber to the OPTIMIST versus PESSIMIST thing because even as we speak now, I never saw this stuff as either black OR white as I always embraced my proposition that NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL.  And as our own personality traits DON'T seem to appear to be as stable as we used to think, , it just leads our own 'worldviews'  relatively malleable.  And I prefer to think of these outlooks as my owned learned responses😌😌😌

Over time, we learn to view the world one way OR another, often based on our experiences [rather than some inherent trait].  Problem here is that quite sometimes, we tend to give our preferential attention to certain types of experiences [regardless if such experiences are indeed representative of our lives [because, often they are outliers].  LIKE we seem more prone to attending to circumstances that we perceive as negativeand weighing those experiences in our own interpretation of the world💚💛💜

In the end, we're more likely to survive if only we can put greater emphasis on something that is either dangerous OR at least risky rather than on something that seems pleasant [OR neutral at worst].  Over time, I'd admit that it's quite easy to learn to view our world as one damn crappy place and for many of us, that could be no farther from the truth itself.  LIKE living in a war zone OR dealing with constant [i'll call it CHRONIC] stress OR worse, even violence [HOW often we hear about those mass killings, of which, the latest happened in Bangkok] leading us to predisposed with a pessimistic worldview although stress ISN'T life threatening OR even highly traumatising for now😡😡😡

Our takeaway:  WHILE often overused, this notion of OPTIMISM and PESSIMISM is often overused OR oversimplified.  On one hand, OPTIMISM represents one's perception of event as more likely to have a positive OR pleasant outcome WHEREAS the downside of that viewpoint is that our world is just full of debacles [i'll call it disappointments and challenges].  So, WHAT IF WE THINK LIKE AN OPTIMIST AND PLAN LIKE A PESSIMIST?  Does that hold water???