Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?

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Well i am not saying I can actually predict anything but I do usually assume the worst and sometimes my assumption proves to be right. I mean I used to think about various senerios involving people with guns taking place in my school....and when I was in 10th grade some seemingly random person(not a student) came into the school and ended up killing one of the students. I mean it was a coincidence I am sure but still it was not suprising to me after having thought about it. I mean I know the reality...but its hard not to feel like there was something I could have done to prevent it which is ridiculous.

lol ya, I do the same thing. Flying on an airplane scares the **** of me. I'll play out everything in my mind and if something bothers me, get really paranoid about it.

I'd say I'm a pretty pessimistic person. One of these hope for the best, expect the worst type of people. I protect myself that way, been crushed too many times.

I am a complete pessimist. I normally envision every worst case scenario before doing anything of importance. I usually just refer to myself as realistic. I used to p*ss off a teacher in my HS because by 12th grade the whole school had basically sucked the soul out of me. So I always expected that anything bad could happen. She would always say that trite phrase "Can you believe...?" and I would say "yes". Eventually she said "Oh, of course you do" or something like that because she knew that I always said yes.

I try to enjoy things that I like now but it seems like whenever I let down my guard someone randomly insults me and since I'm not prepared it upsets me much more than if I had my shackles up.

I guess you are right. I'm going to have to rethink my philosophy here.



There's nothing to be paranoid about when flying. If, for some reason, the pilot and copilot are both killed, you should use the radio to contact an air traffic controller. They will be able to tell you what to do in that sort of situation, and everything should work out fine.

If something goes wrong with the plane and the pilot is alive, there's nothing to worry about. They're trained to handle that sort of stuff. Heck, even I know what to do in case of a total engine failure, and I've never flown a plane in my life. Without the engines, the plane is going to stall. What you want to do is point the nose of the plane down to let gravity accelerate the plane back up to speed to keep going. By doing this, you could probably go far enough to land safely at an airport, but if that isn't an option, landing it in a body of water would be a close second, followed by an open field. Then it shouldn't be too long before you're rescued.

When flying, the only thing you should really be concerned about is an electromagnetic pulse attack. What EMP does is disable all electronics, and most modern day aircraft can't fly without all the electrical systems. Although if that happens, you're screwed whether you're in the sky, in you're car (it would cause the fuel in the car to ignite, probably killing you), or anything else really. Such an attack would make all electronic devices totally useless. I predict that that's how WWIII will be started, and it would probably be extremely effective.

Yeah, airplanes are a special interest of mine...

i would've added 2 more gradations to the poll-

i am a meliorist [things are mediocre now but are getting better]
i am a pejorist [things are mediocre now and are getting worse]

i alternate between those two frames of mind.

I'm a realist more than anything but these days I lean towards optimism. I used to be extremely pessimistic though up until around a year ago.

I voted for Other & I will explain. My outlook about something is formed based on my past experiences with similar things or situations, what I've seen happen with others, & what seems logical, likely & makes sense to me. Some consider me a pessimist but I think it is not realistic to be optimistic about something when my past experiences were bad with it. I am more optimistic about things when my past experiences have been good. I do not consider myself a pessimist or an optimist; I am an analytical Realist

Yes... pessimism is expecting the worst to happen... cynicism is hoping for the worst to happen for whatever reason. Cynicism is a hateful, destructive point of view in my opinion.



I think I would have to agree with you on this point. It IS so discouraging when it all falls apart, but I will still keep on trying with positive expectations just like "The Little Engine That Could". Otherwise you are almost assured of failure.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst I always say.

I'm a REALIST. I am optimistic about things that reasonably should go well, and pessimistic about things which may have a track record for failing or being a problem, and I prepare accordingly.

Charles

Well now I might have to rethink the fact that I voted pessimist instead of cynic...considering a lot of times I do kind of hope for the worst to happen. This happens the most when I am really bored or feeling like things cannot get any worse or better.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llLY9VUKpRM[/youtube]

I tend to always skip the hope for the best part.

I'm a fatalist, which means I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic, I just know things are gonna happen one way only, so theres nothing I can do about it.

I voted cautious optimist. I tend to believe that things will go well if I come up with a plan and apply myself, but I don't hope and dream and wish for best case scenarios to materialize out of nowhere.

According to this I am an optimist but I voted cautious optimist

optimism and pessimism feed back on themselves... choose the right one and be happy...

Last edited by pree10shun on 03 Jul 2011, 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.