We've all heard the saying about the optimist seeing the glass as half full and the pessimist seeing the glass half empty. It seems like an easy way to throw everyone in to two groups and in my humble opinion it is a great way to separate the two. One is correct and one is incorrect. Before I tell you which group is correct, I ask that you picture yourself in a restaurant. This restaurant asks you if you are an optimist or a pessimist when you entered and put an "O" or a "P" on your forehead so they would remember. You order your food and a fine bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine nicely compliments your meal and you both are enjoying it. The waiter walks by and sees that both of your glasses appear to have half the amount originally poured. He lifts the bottle from the table and pours it into the glass of the person with the "P" on their head and returns the bottle to the table. He walks off to tend to another table. The point is, in his opinion the pessimist saw the glass as half empty and wanted it to be filled. The optimist sees the glass as half full, so they obviously don't need any more yet. If this restaurant existed, my guess, is that a group of optimists would burn it down.
I am always being called a pessimist, but to be honest, it works for me. To me optimism is similar to religion, in that it is the hope for the best possible outcome. In religion, we live our lives in the hopes that in the end we are taken to a better place. My feeling is, we become nothing more than worm food or something to fill an ornament on the fireplace mantle. That is if we're every lucky enough to have a fireplace.
Now faith is fine. If that's what you need to get you through your day that is fine, but seriously, it's not optimism. I see faith as almost a pessimistic view. A view where you believe that no matter what you do, good or bad, that the end result lies in God's hands. Think about the story of Noah. Religious people love this story. God reaches out to Noah and tells him to build an ark and the animals get on two by two. Of all the characters in the Bible, Noah probably shows more faith than anyone. What's lost in the story, and to those of strong faith, is that God did not offer the weather report to anyone else and killed everything else in the desert and promised never to do this again. Yet every year thousands die to floods, tsunamis, etc. So optimists, is this the kinda trustworthy guy you are waiting to sit and have tell stories to you while dancing around on clouds? God in my opinion was the first politician. Now listen, I'm not religious, so my point of view is skewed, but the Bible (and yes, I've read it) is juicier than any Harlequin novel and a hell of a lot scarier than anything Stephen King ever wrote. Whole cities turning to salt? Wow! That God guy gas quite the temper. I won't even get into what he let them do to his son.
OK, I lost my train of thought for a bit. My point was that to me, optimists and religious yo-yo's seem to be one group and those people who do analytic thinking and realize that not everything is peaches and cream are the other. I wrote in my facebook status that I'm glad I'm not an optimist because "Imagine going through your entire life never having the ability to be pleasantly surprised."Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but the point I was making is that if you are truly an optimist, then when little things go right, you shouldn't be that thrilled, yet I'll do a fucking back flip if my baseball team wins. I'd also like to think that while a positive outlook is all fine and dandy, you have to get let down quite a bit. When I meet someone and think there might be a relationship involved, I stay positive, and turn myself into Opti-man. Then a few weeks, months, years later, I want to hang myself. A few days later I'm over it. What I've noticed is my truly optimistic friends go into a series of stages of depression in which they resemble a casting call for the role of Alex in Fatal Attraction. What I'm saying, is that when things go wrong, us pessimists roll with the punches, not into the fetal position like you optimists. Nancy Kerrigan was an optimist with dreams and aspirations. When faced with adversity (and a lead pipe to the kneecap) she screamed "Why Me" on national TV. Why you? Because God loves you Nancy.
It's funny, because the people who have been so quick to judge me over the past few years have so much to say about how others live their lives, but quickly shut down when that metaphoric magnifying glass is held over their lives. I've had people tell me I waste too much time in the bar and it's a sad pessimistic thing to go there all the time to watch games and get drunk. Let's see, going out to be with other people, have stimulating conversation over drinks and food is a pessimistic way to live? Yet, sitting alone watching hours upon hours of mindless shit like Grey's Anatomy with a pint of Rocky Road is going to lead you down a positive path? I think not. I'll take a sober or drunken conversation with a complete stranger over heavily anticipating to find out if McDreamy or McSteamy bangs the new girl in the closet. Sorry, my pessimistic views don't allow me to look forward with great desire to three hours of the full frontal lobotomy that has become network television.
You know what Monday through Friday is to an optimist? Hoping it won't fucking rain or be too cold during the weekend. How optimistic is that? You know what Monday through Friday is to a pessimist? Well, it's going to rain and maybe it'll snow, and I know it's going to be cold, but that's when apples are around fucknuts, it's October. When it doesn't rain and the sun shines bright and warms the land, the optimist throws their little brats into the car and heads off into the fall foliage and enjoys the day. The pessimist does the same, yet without five days of thinking about the weather and making back-up plans.
Half of all marriages end in divorce. That's a fact. Pessimists know this, optimists make excuses for those that didn't work out and say things like, "it wasn't meant to be." It wasn't mean to be is like my favorite phrase it is what it is. Basically, it's a cop out and a way not to deal with the fact that one or both of the parties probably shouldn't have gone through with this in the first place. We all die. That too is a fact. Tragedy not withstanding, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Yet it amazes me, how optimists face this adversity compared with pessimists. My mother was given six months to live. I immediately gave her three. She lived over another year. While difficult I cherished every moment. Almost every moment. The moments I hated were when those optimists would call and tell her of some new drug they read of or how their half-sister's niece had cancer and it just went away one day. When my mother finally passed, it was time. We grieved, we moved on. Not the optimists, they wanted the grieving to go on forever. They wanted to remember her struggle every day. They wanted candles lit and events held in her honor. Let it go. It's part of life. The last part.
I'm always told that a pessimist can't have a positive outlook and that my negativity is apparent in everything I do. I wake up every morning and go to work. It's a necessary evil that we all must do. I don't enjoy every part of it, I need to vent often, but it's called work, it's not called Happy Hour. I coach children and honestly, In the 20 years of working with kids, I've raised my voice only a handful of time. I don't even own a whistle. I go into every session with kids expecting some behavior issues and some bumps and bruises and they happen. It's over, I go home. I watch as other's I've worked with expect the best and then when little Joey bumps his head, they rush to his side, like he's Ryan White (look it up). They take this home with them and carry it over into the next class and start that one with a 20 minute safety speech that bores the kids and myself.
In life, there are bumps in the road. Optimists see them as challenges and pessimists see them as inconveniences. Optimists figure a way to conquer them. Pessimist see ways to avoid them. I find that optimists work very slow and don't get a lot done, because they aren't as properly prepared as pessimists. I would like to think of myself as a realist, but s few people don't like that term. They think it's my mask for pessimism. Maybe it is. I really don't like to label things.
Next time you go out with someone who is all smiles and sunshine and they ask the waiter to fill their water glass, explain to them that they don't need it filled, it's already half full. Then explain to them that their life is like that glass of water, but in life, we don't get refills. Then smile and go back to eating.
I am always being called a pessimist, but to be honest, it works for me. To me optimism is similar to religion, in that it is the hope for the best possible outcome. In religion, we live our lives in the hopes that in the end we are taken to a better place. My feeling is, we become nothing more than worm food or something to fill an ornament on the fireplace mantle. That is if we're every lucky enough to have a fireplace.
Now faith is fine. If that's what you need to get you through your day that is fine, but seriously, it's not optimism. I see faith as almost a pessimistic view. A view where you believe that no matter what you do, good or bad, that the end result lies in God's hands. Think about the story of Noah. Religious people love this story. God reaches out to Noah and tells him to build an ark and the animals get on two by two. Of all the characters in the Bible, Noah probably shows more faith than anyone. What's lost in the story, and to those of strong faith, is that God did not offer the weather report to anyone else and killed everything else in the desert and promised never to do this again. Yet every year thousands die to floods, tsunamis, etc. So optimists, is this the kinda trustworthy guy you are waiting to sit and have tell stories to you while dancing around on clouds? God in my opinion was the first politician. Now listen, I'm not religious, so my point of view is skewed, but the Bible (and yes, I've read it) is juicier than any Harlequin novel and a hell of a lot scarier than anything Stephen King ever wrote. Whole cities turning to salt? Wow! That God guy gas quite the temper. I won't even get into what he let them do to his son.
OK, I lost my train of thought for a bit. My point was that to me, optimists and religious yo-yo's seem to be one group and those people who do analytic thinking and realize that not everything is peaches and cream are the other. I wrote in my facebook status that I'm glad I'm not an optimist because "Imagine going through your entire life never having the ability to be pleasantly surprised."Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but the point I was making is that if you are truly an optimist, then when little things go right, you shouldn't be that thrilled, yet I'll do a fucking back flip if my baseball team wins. I'd also like to think that while a positive outlook is all fine and dandy, you have to get let down quite a bit. When I meet someone and think there might be a relationship involved, I stay positive, and turn myself into Opti-man. Then a few weeks, months, years later, I want to hang myself. A few days later I'm over it. What I've noticed is my truly optimistic friends go into a series of stages of depression in which they resemble a casting call for the role of Alex in Fatal Attraction. What I'm saying, is that when things go wrong, us pessimists roll with the punches, not into the fetal position like you optimists. Nancy Kerrigan was an optimist with dreams and aspirations. When faced with adversity (and a lead pipe to the kneecap) she screamed "Why Me" on national TV. Why you? Because God loves you Nancy.
It's funny, because the people who have been so quick to judge me over the past few years have so much to say about how others live their lives, but quickly shut down when that metaphoric magnifying glass is held over their lives. I've had people tell me I waste too much time in the bar and it's a sad pessimistic thing to go there all the time to watch games and get drunk. Let's see, going out to be with other people, have stimulating conversation over drinks and food is a pessimistic way to live? Yet, sitting alone watching hours upon hours of mindless shit like Grey's Anatomy with a pint of Rocky Road is going to lead you down a positive path? I think not. I'll take a sober or drunken conversation with a complete stranger over heavily anticipating to find out if McDreamy or McSteamy bangs the new girl in the closet. Sorry, my pessimistic views don't allow me to look forward with great desire to three hours of the full frontal lobotomy that has become network television.
You know what Monday through Friday is to an optimist? Hoping it won't fucking rain or be too cold during the weekend. How optimistic is that? You know what Monday through Friday is to a pessimist? Well, it's going to rain and maybe it'll snow, and I know it's going to be cold, but that's when apples are around fucknuts, it's October. When it doesn't rain and the sun shines bright and warms the land, the optimist throws their little brats into the car and heads off into the fall foliage and enjoys the day. The pessimist does the same, yet without five days of thinking about the weather and making back-up plans.
Half of all marriages end in divorce. That's a fact. Pessimists know this, optimists make excuses for those that didn't work out and say things like, "it wasn't meant to be." It wasn't mean to be is like my favorite phrase it is what it is. Basically, it's a cop out and a way not to deal with the fact that one or both of the parties probably shouldn't have gone through with this in the first place. We all die. That too is a fact. Tragedy not withstanding, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Yet it amazes me, how optimists face this adversity compared with pessimists. My mother was given six months to live. I immediately gave her three. She lived over another year. While difficult I cherished every moment. Almost every moment. The moments I hated were when those optimists would call and tell her of some new drug they read of or how their half-sister's niece had cancer and it just went away one day. When my mother finally passed, it was time. We grieved, we moved on. Not the optimists, they wanted the grieving to go on forever. They wanted to remember her struggle every day. They wanted candles lit and events held in her honor. Let it go. It's part of life. The last part.
I'm always told that a pessimist can't have a positive outlook and that my negativity is apparent in everything I do. I wake up every morning and go to work. It's a necessary evil that we all must do. I don't enjoy every part of it, I need to vent often, but it's called work, it's not called Happy Hour. I coach children and honestly, In the 20 years of working with kids, I've raised my voice only a handful of time. I don't even own a whistle. I go into every session with kids expecting some behavior issues and some bumps and bruises and they happen. It's over, I go home. I watch as other's I've worked with expect the best and then when little Joey bumps his head, they rush to his side, like he's Ryan White (look it up). They take this home with them and carry it over into the next class and start that one with a 20 minute safety speech that bores the kids and myself.
In life, there are bumps in the road. Optimists see them as challenges and pessimists see them as inconveniences. Optimists figure a way to conquer them. Pessimist see ways to avoid them. I find that optimists work very slow and don't get a lot done, because they aren't as properly prepared as pessimists. I would like to think of myself as a realist, but s few people don't like that term. They think it's my mask for pessimism. Maybe it is. I really don't like to label things.
Next time you go out with someone who is all smiles and sunshine and they ask the waiter to fill their water glass, explain to them that they don't need it filled, it's already half full. Then explain to them that their life is like that glass of water, but in life, we don't get refills. Then smile and go back to eating.
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