I learned today that I am a pessimist. I used to deny this fact with all of my worth and power. How could I be? I am a happy person. I look to the future with all the hope of rainbows, bright sunshiny skies, and half priced sales at the local quilt shop. I love seeing my goals, knowing that I CAN reach them.
What made me delve into this bizarre form of self observation? I don't have the foggiest. I just was thinking about a quote that I read the other day about how a textbook case optimist would think after falling the first 50 floors off of the empire state building "well, so far, so good!"
You see, people often (almost always) confuse optimism with the word positive, and pessimism with the word negative. BIG MISTAKE, people. Optimists will many times fail to see obstructions, kinks in plans, and wrenches in gears during their visions of success. They make the worst CEOs on the planet.
A pessimist will say "well, what is the worst that can happen? Can I deal with that?" A pessimist is a person who pulls all of their stock and throws it into bonds in August 2008 (thank you, thank you, thank you my wonderful husband). A pessimist is a person who shoots for the achievable, and then enjoys all of the wonderful gravy should there be any 'extra'. A pessimist keeps their 2003 Honda Civic yet another year because it is paid off instead of buying the 2010 Chevy Equinox that they have had visions of, just in case the economy isn't looking as rosy as all of the optimists are saying.
My life may not be exciting because of my positive pessimism, but I think that it will last a lot longer because of how I see my future. I see myself 98 years old, in a quaint home that is paid off with tons of cast-off scraps of fabric from other ladies projects. Is that something I can deal with? Oh, yes.
