For most of my life, I have considered myself an optimistic person. Adversity is viewed as an opportunity for growth which leads to resilience and achievement of “the good life”. However, as my husband often reminds me, extreme optimism is no better than extreme pessimism if you are unable to maintain a realistic, balanced approach to life.
By definition, an optimist is an individual who has positive outcome expectancies and believes that good things will happen in their life (Gruman et. al., 2016). Meanwhile, a pessimist is someone who has negative outcome expectancies and doubts their ability or chances of obtaining a desirable outcome in the future (Gruman et al., 2016). While at first glance it is easy to say that living your life with an optimistic view is the most desirable or beneficial for goal attainment, relying solely on optimism can lead to optimistic bias. As someone who is generally optimistic, this can look like an overestimation of good things happening in my life like receiving a job promotion or an underestimation of bad things happening such as being laid off (Gruman et al., 2016).
At the same time, pessimism at the opposite extreme can result in pessimistic bias. This can be equally limiting as it can cause someone to significantly underestimate the potential of something positive occurring in their life and overestimate the possibility that bad things will occur (Gruman et al., 2016). With this understanding one thing becomes clear, neither optimism or pessimism is inherently more desired than the other. Instead, a balanced approach to life and outlook is needed.
After further reflection on the lesson presented in Chapter 17, I recognize that I still have much room to grow in obtaining this balanced view. Grumen et al. (2016) presents various definitions of balance in relation to pessimism and optimism. Each offers valuable insight into how these views function, but the one that resonates most with me is balance as a synthesis. Balance, as a synthesis, calls for understanding that pessimism and optimism operate together rather than at opposite ends of the spectrum (Gruman et al., 2016). This balanced view highlights that both pessimism and optimism can exist together and can effectively contribute to life success.
With this knowledge in mind, I have learned that the goal is not to abandon my optimistic nature but to complement my optimism with a more grounded outlook. Separately, each perspective has its detrimental extreme, but together, both optimism and pessimism foster greater resilience and healthier life expectations. Moving forward, I aim to achieve this balanced mindset as I continue to strive for growth and long-term well-being.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
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