(no subject)
Oct. 27th, 2011 07:58 am(From a conversation w/a friend on tumblr, saved here for future reference.)
I'm not a fan of over-pessimism, because as you say, I think that events are probably mostly neutral, right? So with pessimism, you feel like crap all the time, and with more optimistic thinking, you feel better. With guarded thinking, you feel neutral, but /also/ there is a great benefit of you are giving the situation leeway to develop in unexpected ways, without pre-judgement. And because of that, yes, I think that what one tells one's self is important.
That's why I don't like it when I'm in a phase of pessimism, and why things flow much more smoothly in my life when I'm optimistic. You're not presuming that everything will go terribly, feeling like crap about that, and then feeling like crap but vindicated if things go wrong, or like crap & like it's a fluke when things go well. Instead, you're kind of open to seeing possibilities in situations.