President Ronald Reagan had to have been the most eternal optimist of all the U.S. Presidents who ever served. If he were just an ordinary person he had to have been a good example of someone who always looked at a half filled glass as half full, as opposed to the other equally accurate description - that the glass is half empty. Technically, either description would be accurately correct. The difference is ruled by the rule of perspective.
President Reagan told and re-told this story about the difference between optimism and pessimism. Those around his circle said this was his favorite joke that he often re-told over and over a few times.
"The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities — one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist — their parents took them to a psychiatrist."
The psychiatrist first took the pessimist child to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. Moments later, the psychiatrist checked in on him. Instead of enjoying the toys the little boy burst into tears. Asked why he didn't seem to enjoy playing with the toys he replied “Yes, but if I did I’d only break them.”
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. To dampen the boy's spirits the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. ”What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!”
The rule of perspective is what gives most situations their definition depending on how one individual looks at it. However, even in the most dire conditions, the rule of perspective would still have profound influences, affecting individuals to varying degrees. Afterall, when things go bad, pessimism does not help, while optimism opens a door through which one may begin to alleviate the ill effects of a bad situation while setting the stage to make things better.
However, that is not to say that pessimism is completely and thoroughly bad because to be so totally optimistic all the time as to ignore every conceivable possibility that things can go wrong is also not such a really good thing. From my last musing I did mention about the universal duality as the governing rule that defines purpose.
I wrote too from an earlier topic that perhaps Col. Custer's total optimism may have caused his and his troop's lives at Little Big Horn on June 26, 1876. A dose of pessimism, if allowed to prevail, could have delayed Custer's push to the battlefield had he waited for reinforcements that were a mere day away.
Field Marshal Montgomery was way too optimistic when he pushed so hard to launch Operation Market Garden in Sept. 1944 in an attempt to capture key bridges in the Netherlands as a quick way into German territory. Instead, it delayed the invasion of Germany when the operation failed at the cost of so many lives of the Allied forces; tragically more so when so many of those were from the 101st Airborne Division that heroically performed so well for the Allied forces in the preceding hours of the Normandy landing three months earlier.
In our personal lives not only is it a good idea to have a healthy mix of optimism and pessimism but that when it comes to relationships between people and particularly between husband and wife, opposing views may help in decision making. But it must not lead to paralysis. A healthy mix could help when excessive optimism is tempered by a dose of pessimism to arrive at a balanced decision.
For example, a lofty desire by one partner for a nice luxury vehicle can be prevailed upon when the reality of affordability is brought up by the other. Recognizing what such an undertaking will do to the family budget may belong in the domain of the pessimist but it is a good balance against the unmetered desires of the insouciant optimist. Perhaps marriage is not so much about "horse and carriage"' as in an old Frank Sinatra song, but that it is more about polar opposites meeting halfway across the room between the optimist and the pessimist - a prelude to a waltz into a happy solution.
But I say...
When the wind is blowing the optimist decides it is the best time to fly a kite; the pessimist worries about a storm that is certain to follow; the pragmatist is the one to open the windows to let in the breeze of fresh air into the house.
