Hit or Miss

I was just starting up a blog for another community I work with (the InReach Pagan Community), and decided to try the "next blog" button at the top of my interface.

I wound up at the blog of a Franciscan monk, named Charles. (Check out his blog at a minor friar.)

According to his blog, he's a big fan of punk rock.

Gotta love the blogosphere...

Anyway, he talks about what a friend of his calls the "survival of defeatist." Basically, that pessimistic people are better prepared to deal with the trials and tribulations of life because they have already envisioned and thought about those possibilities.

I do not consider myself a pessimist. In fact, I am usually (low-self esteem post of the other day notwithstanding) quite an optimistic person. Never the less, I often *plan* on things going badly, figuring that in this way I am prepared for a poor outcome, and will be better able to deal with it. However, I always *hope for* and *work towards* the best outcome. When questioned about this attitude I say that I always prefer being "pleasantly surprised."

I'm not sure if this has impacted my survivability or not, but it certainly has made me more mentally resilient. I get the challenge of problem solving ways out of negative situations, and I get to put my efforts into working towards more positive outcomes, sometimes avoiding pitfalls that might not have been apparent to me without my problem solving.

I find this proactive and useful. I find it better than pure optimism, which I find somewhat naive; bad things happen, and we can be blindsided by them, anticipate them and do nothing, or plan for them, and hope that we can mitigate their worst effects.