“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” ~George F. Will, The Leveling Wind
“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” ~Harry Truman
I wrote about gratitude before Thanksgiving and it started me thinking about how differently each person can view the same situation. I am a half-full gal but I married a half-empty kind of guy. My lovable husband has moments of being just like Glum in Gulliver’s Travels, “Flirtatia, we’ll never make it!”
Doing a brief literature search on both viewpoints, I was not surprised to learn that there are advantages to being a half-full gal. I’m supposed to be happier, healthier, live a lot longer, more likely to be hired for a job, less stressed out, and lower rates of depression and alcoholism. Hmm. However, half-full people are more prone to experience disappointment because they often expect the best to happen.
There are four main ways that people who are half-empty use to perpetuate their mind set. Filtering the good in a situation and magnifying the bad. Personalizing a bad situation by blaming yourself. Catastrophizing a situation by always anticipating the worse. Polarizing by seeing things so black and white that there is no middle ground at something being either good or bad (perfection falls in this category).
Most people know whether they are half-full or half-empty. Take this quiz and report back what you are and if you were surprised by the results. I was a 21. 1 is the true optimist and 100 is the true pessimist.
NOTE: You can buy a ‘full report’ of sorts but I did not.
