Pessimism is a Luxury

It’s been said that optimism is a luxury afforded the privileged few while the rest of humanity toils under the hot sun, barely catching its breath. It’s easier to feel hopeful when we have the time and resources to think about the future, and looking for the positives in everything can only happen when we aren’t getting being knocked down by life at every turn. By those definitions, optimism is indeed a luxury.

Another view of optimism is the lemons out of lemonade idea – making the most of whatever life throws at us. I learned this type of optimism from my grandmother, who, fighting cancer, was no longer able to walk, so she learned how to knit. Unable to hold down food, she would still go to restaurants just for the outing and companionship. In the last year of her life, the most basic bodily functions became a struggle, but her quality of life was the highest it could have been.

Viktor Frankl said that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” He said this despite spending three years in concentration camps where his father died of starvation and pneumonia, his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers, and his wife died of typhus.

Optimism, resilience, and grit are therefore inextricably linked, allowing us to push past adversity and salvage the best outcomes from difficult circumstances. Without them, we wallow in anger, blame, and self-pity. Pessimism is therefore the luxury, and too often, we indulge in negative thinking to our own detriment and that of those around us. Life can be very hard, and pain is real. Optimism doesn’t make the awful parts of reality go away, nor does it make them less difficult, but it does give us something to hold onto as we muddle through.

When we allow ourselves to be pessimistic, we become wrapped up in ourselves, unable to give to those around us. We infect others with our negativity and spread hopelessness and fear. We can only do this when society can function without us or when others can be positive despite our influence. History shows that when pessimism takes over, the result is often misery and death, not only for ourselves, but for many others as well.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but it’s fair to assume, that like today, it will be a mix of good and bad, challenges and opportunities. There will always be shadows in our world, but we mustn’t forget the brilliant sunshine that created them, nor miss out on the beauty in the shadows themselves. Every day, the universe makes its move, and the next move is up to us. Like optimism, pessimism is also a choice, just not a good one.