Optimist Or Pessimist

If you say the glass is half full you’re considered an optimist, while if you say the glass is half empty you’re a pessimist. However, few people bother to consider what’s in the glass. If the glass has poison in it presumably you’d be very glad the glass was half empty and therefore an optimist, while if you felt the glass was half full you’d be a pessimist.  

The same thing goes for those who forecast economic boom versus economic depression. The former are considered cheery and optimistic, while the latter are considered doom and gloom. This is based on the erroneous assumption that growth is always good and contraction is always bad.

One key of our key economic indicators is housing starts. If they’re up it’s good, but if they’re down it’s bad. Taken to its logical extreme sooner or later we run out of land and have no place to grow food and no place for wildlife not to mention conflicts with commercial interests and industry. This in turn is based on another erroneous assumption that a stagnant or decreasing population is bad. An increasing population made sense when our numbers were only a few million globally, but don’t when we have several billion people.

This reminds me of a story my mother told about a relative in the 19^th century, who was a dentist. Whenever he’d come for a visit he would check the teeth of the relatives he was visiting. His visits were not looked forward to. However, he was actually doing people a favor in helping them keep their teeth healthy.

If you or your message is perceived as being pessimistic you won’t be welcomed or listened too. There are exceptions. A message warning about a coming hurricane or tornado usually is listened to and acted upon, although some just ignore it. A famous case of people ignoring a warning of danger is when the Titanic sank. People convinced themselves that the ship was safer than a little rowboat until too late.

Sometimes something that has been perceived as negative can perceived as positive. For years the forestry departments of Canada and the United States used to believe that forest fires were always bad and therefore they had to be suppressed.  Finally it was learned that forest fires, at least small ones, were actually very good for the health of the forest. They cleared out the accumulated undergrowth and were key to the survival of some species. When forest fires are suppressed it leads to major configurations as sooner or later all the undergrowth has to be removed or the forest dies.

As you can see from these examples whether or you perceive something as being optimistic or pessimistic depends on your experience and knowledge of a situation. Under these circumstances the abnormal and unhealthy can come to be seen the normal and the healthy and thus anyone who forecasts the return the normal and the healthy can often be seen as pessimistic. The bottom line is we need to keep an open mind about the message and to judge it based on our preconceived notions.