Optimism and Pessimism

Generally speaking, hoping for the best is optimism and hoping the worst is pessimism at their peaks. Only optimism makes a person to take a calculated risk, so it is the first and the foremost attribute of an entrepreneur. But, even for an entrepreneur, some traces of pessimism are desirable due to which he/she prepares himself/herself for contingencies, without which no business organization can be sure of survival in long run. After-all, accidents do take place. So, nobody can afford to be cent per cent optimistic.

Optimism and pessimism, both are states of mind of an individual in a given situation, and the two exist together. It is their proportion that decides whether a person is optimist or a pessimist. If the vehicle designers were purely optimists, there would have been no brakes in vehicles. They foresaw some obstacles being present on roads, and kept the provision of brakes in all the vehicles. Many may opine that providing for contingencies is not pessimism, just because pessimism always stays with optimism.

What is pessimism, after all? It is fear in the mind of a subject confronted by taking a decision. If he/she overcomes this fear by his/her boldness, he/she is considered an optimist. So, to be an optimist, one has to overcome pessimism which is always present in minds of people under all deciding circumstances. This logic makes pessimism omnipresent and optimism an opposition to this. This opposition, like all other oppositions, needs courage which is not omnipresent. Thus, only a courageous person can be an optimist.

There is one more stage higher than being courageous, it is being adventurist. In all the adventures, degree of risk is very high and anything unfortunate is expected. It may be called super-optimism.

Gamble is another game wherein optimism of the player works. It is different from entrepreneurship in the sense that in a gamble, there is nothing under control of the subject while in an enterprise, the subject is empowered to exert his/her controls over the situation. Optimism is justified only in situations where the subject has some control over the circumstances, otherwise it is an undesirable gamble. It is like a circus scene of a lion riding a horse with the lion trainer standing in front of the lion, doing nothing but enough to make the lion behave.

Finally, optimism is defined as overcoming a fear of some mis-happening on the way, which comes from being in full or partial control of the situation. With no controls in hand, pessimism is an asset.