I read something very interesting the other day. Apparently, someone did a study somewhere that measured the "success" of people generally classified as optimistic and pessimistic. I use "success" in quotes because it quantified it in terms of income and career advancement. The surprise? The pessimists were far and away more successful.
Of course there were theories about why this is true, but the most obvious thing is that pessimism helps people filter out the things that don't have a realistic chance at succeeding. That makes total sense to me.
One might take this to mean that pessimists don't take risks, but I don't think that's true at all. I think it just means they don't waste time on things that don't get them to their goals. So for example, one could dream of making a business out of selling the invention they dreamed up, but they're likely to avoid a lot of flowery bullshit and tactically stupid actions to get there. They don't rely on optimistic warm fuzzies.
I can relate to this. I would describe myself as an optimistic pessimist. I'm not generally negative, but my threshold for putting up with things that just get in the way or don't add value is low. I don't deal well with people who think that posters with motivational nonsense on them make great wall ornaments. Clear action beats talking about it. I expect that the default outcome is failure, but believe that the right people and actions lead to success. More to the point, cheerleading is useless if it isn't associated with precise action.
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