I will preface this one by saying that I might be completely in the minority on this one, but I suspect I am not. After all, how many Marvin the Robot’s have you met?
I am displeased that the text labels optimism and pesimism as black and white. After reading (Pg 124-126) and doing a few thought experiments I came to the conclusion that most people I know don’t fall into the ‘optimist’ or ‘pesimist’ category. I, for example, don’t expect things that happen to me to be good or bad, but instead expect them to be the result of what is really the case. It is what it is, in other words.The book seems to use both optimism and pessimism in conjunction with some state of self delusion, as if most kid themselves into thinking they’re going to do great or fail. This might be the case but in my experience I don’t have many expectations or preconceived notions about what might happen (circumstantial, I suppose).
If I had to choose, I would probably choose optimism because I would like to think that I control a portion of what happens to me. Obviously, nobody lives in a world where they control every variable of their life; after all, your actions are the only ones you CAN control. There are both negative and positive things that can happen to people, and all you do is lean yourself in one direction or the other.
I haven’t really thought through how this effects preparedness in a person. I mean, if you think the outcome of something is going to be bad, why even try? I can’t imagine every person who labels themselves as a ‘pessimist’ doesn’t lock their doors at night just assuming it won’t make a difference.