On optimism and pessimism

A French author once wrote: "Parce que j'attends le pire, l'inattendu peut être meilleur". As I expect the worst, the unexpected could turn out to be better. Indeed, pessimism, expecting the worst to happen, has one advantage: it saves us from disappointment. If things turn out better than anticipated, we might even be glad about the outcome.

Voltaire already pointed out that real life offers no reason to be optimistic, as there is no "providence" that is ruling the world to make us happy. In his famous story Candide ou l'optimisme, the main character walks through a world full of atrocities and calls it naïvely the best of all possible worlds. More recent news events also tend to make us pessimistic, as we are potentially facing a totally new type of war, right at a point in history we thought we got rid of it. And if Candide had been written in our time, Voltaire would have taken him to the Greek - Macedonian border.

In technical development work and in project management, a pessimistic view is sometimes useful. If you anticipate that something is not going to work, you will take measures to prevent this, and this may save your project. A project manager must know that if he didn't take care of something, probably nobody did. The disadvantage of this pessimism is that it can become completely discouraging, you may identify so many problems that you might even be tempted to give up. You would also need some optimism to believe in a project. Belief creates the actual fact.

Seneca attributed good or bad luck to Lady Fortuna, and as a good Stoic, he didn't see a reason to be sad about the evil that struck him. In traditional Christian faith, the godly Providence has often been the guiding principle in the positive / negative outcome of things. No wonder few Christian philosophers have expressed themselves on optimism or pessimism.

Bertrand Russell wrote: "Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naïve humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy."

Even if there is indeed no "providence" to protect us against evil, we may find comfort in the fact that some "good" fellow human beings around us do protect us against evil and in this way, these 'angels' can somehow play the role of the "absent" Providence, however not in an almighty way. We will still need "luck".

Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic will also depend on your natural character. On the other hand, it is possible to steer your thoughts somehow and sometimes this is really needed to find your way in life. Pessimism in your short term expectations, combined with optimism on the ultimate feasibility of something, may be a wise attitude at work and in life.

It is really worth watching Alain de Botton's Sunday lecture on pessimism. I also found inspiration in Brainpickings.