Pessimism Is the Superpower of the Future
By: Jessica Wildfire
Tags: Life, Self Improvement, Mindfulness, Health, Humor

I’m generally not on people’s speed dial for pep talks. And yet there she was, popping the question: “Things are going to get better, right?” My friend needed to hear some hope.

“Well,” I said. “I don’t really know.”

Her voice grew emphatic. “It has to. It just does. Last semester was so awful. I don’t know if I can go through that again.”

She was obviously talking about the pandemic. It owns a penthouse in everyone’s mind, and it’s not vacating anytime soon. To her insistence I replied: “I mean, it doesn’t have to get better…”

Her voice was starting to tremble. So I did my best to calm her down. “Look, I don’t know if it’s going to get better. I just know we’ll get more used to it. We’ll get better at handling things. We don’t have a choice.”

“That’s not very comforting,” she said.

I laughed.

This is a fairly standard conversation for me, especially over the last year. You’d think people would learn. It’s safe to say, my pessimism didn’t help her, but it brings me comfort every day.

I’ll tell you why.

Hope is bad for you.

The higher the hope, the deeper the disappointment.

Philosophers have known this for a while, going back a few thousand years. There’s a reason why Schopenhauer called hope a “folly of the heart,” and Nietzsche described it as “the worst of all evils.”

Hope blinds you to reason.

It makes you dumb and gullible, easy to manipulate. Most people don’t realize it, but hope is their greatest weakness.

Optimism is just an expectation.

Pessimists are keen on letting go of expectations. It’s the quickest route to what we’d call “happiness.”

The problem with optimism is that it’s not a strategy. It’s just an expectation for things to work out. Nothing about optimism prepares you for setbacks and failures, and definitely not bad luck.

That’s why it doesn’t work, even if people say so.

You’re better off with pessimism.

Pessimists plan for the worst.

A pessimist is someone who anticipates bad outcomes and then prepares for them. When they happen, they’re ready.

Imagine that.

One of my friends is an Olympic athlete. A couple of years ago, she fell during a race and went from first place to last. That would devastate a normal person. My friend just shrugged it off.

“I was actually thinking about that the other day,” she said. “And I told myself if I fell, I would just get up and finish.”

Because she visualized a failure, my friend was able to get through it without a meltdown. She won her next race.

That’s how pessimism works.

Positive thinkers trick themselves into thinking nothing will ever go wrong. When something does, they freak out. They shut down. They get defensive. Or they just ignore reality. It makes everything worse.

Pessimists don’t get worked up over disaster.

So they get over them faster.

Pessimists are honest.

Most brands of sunny optimism don’t allow you to speak your mind. You’re not allowed to say anything that could be interpreted as negative. You just have to push it all down.

All that suppressed feeling erupts in the ugliest ways.

Pessimists don’t have this problem. They get to say whatever they want. Here’s the thing about telling the truth, even if it’s bleak:

It makes you happier.

Pessimists are tough.

We don’t need anyone to tell us that “everything’s going to be okay.” In fact, we can spot that phrase for what it is.

It’s a red flag.

When someone has to say that, things are actually pretty bad, and you need a plan for when they get even worse. While the positive thinkers are sitting around trying to make each other feel better, pessimists are dealing with the reality in front of them.

Optimists spend most of their time building a fake world. When their delusions fall apart, so do they.

Pessimists don’t have this problem, either.

They keep their cool.

Pessimists do better work.

We have critical minds, and we anticipate negative reactions. We don’t try to block out negative voices. We listen to them.

The standard advice is to block out or ignore negative voices, but that’s not effective when you’re a professional. Pessimists learn how to harness their inner critic and put them to work.

They don’t get married to outcomes, either. They don’t visualize success. They visualize process. They get lost in the flow of their work. They don’t worry about failing, because they assume they will at some point.

That’s why pessimists perform better.

Pessimists focus on action.

We know that rousing speeches and platitudes wear off. The only way to really make life better is to make it that way.

We’re not waiting for the universe to send down miracles.

We just get to work.

Pessimists know how to improvise.

Positive thinkers get stuck on trying to make a bad plan work, even when everyone knows it’s doomed. When you assume your first plan could fail, you don’t get as worked up when it eventually does.

You’re more open to improvising. Your mind is more flexible.

That’s a valuable skill.

Pessimists are more careful.

Pessimists wind up better off in the long run, emotionally and financially. They don’t take as many dumb chances. They hang back and watch first before making a decision.

Skepticism is another valuable skill.

Pessimists are more attentive to details.

People tend to look down on you when you’re critical. Being critical means you’re more likely to find problems.

That’s a good thing.

Finding flaws and inconsistencies, even tiny ones, can save your life and your job.

Pessimists keep it simple.

A pessimist doesn’t need to dress up the world. They see things for what they are. They don’t mince words.

They don’t get worked up over bad news.

They spend less time looking for the silver linings and more time looking for actual solutions. They don’t mess around.

They get things done.

Pessimists know when something’s done.

Optimists look for perfection. They’ll call something “finished,” and convince themselves to feel good about it. They focus on strengths, when they should be paying more attention to weaknesses.

Pessimists look for flaws.

They review their work over and over looking for imperfections. They only stop when they don’t see anything else to add or change. When they finish their work, they don’t judge it. They know it’s everyone else who has the final say on the quality — not them.

We’re better off without hope.

At least in America, people dismiss pessimists as “glass half empty” types who sit around and complain all day.

That’s not true.

Pessimists are probably the most productive people you’ll ever meet. They don’t spend all day trying to make themselves feel good about the future. They don’t try to trick themselves into a good mood. They know what they’re good at, and what needs to be done.

Hope is a dangerous thing. Too much gives us permission to sit back and let life happen. You can waste your entire life hoping.

Don’t hope.

Do.