What is pessimism?

Each human is different from the other whenever we are in a situation we anticipate what can happen next, some of us have the tendency to think of undesirable outcomes, negative affects basically having a feeling that wrong things will happen when this happens in a greater frequency then we can call it pessimism.

General attitude of an individual to see the negative sides of an event is pessimism. We can understand this by taking an example- suppose in a family one person is diagnosed with cancer now anyone who does not even understand the biological evidence of cancer would know how dangerous disease it can be , so everyone would fear that bad outcomes are likely to occur now a pessimistic person would also tend to think in the same way he/ she would anticipate of all the risks , all bad events likely to happen  and fortunately if things work out he/she would be surprised by the positive outcome.

If you think that you are a pessimistic person then to find this out you cannot just think of one or two incidents and decide that, as all of us experience highs and lows in life and it is normal to think negatively in those times but yes the frequency of our negative thoughts matters, every situation is not so particular that you expect wrong out of it and if you do then you might be a pessimistic person.

If we ask a general question to ourselves -how is our life? Now we all have our versions of answers to this question, if we look at the brighter sides for some it is working out well and some of us have so many complaints how things are not working out as we planned, how difficult it is to live the lives we are respectively living and even some of us have a perspective that eventually this all has to end.

The reason behind the negative thought process can be past experiences-any bad incident or trauma, situational factors- our environment influences how we think, family, work and even biological factors- genes.

Pessimistic individuals are at higher risks of anxiety and depression even the physical health of the person gets affected but with all that being said there can be one advantage even  in being a pessimistic person as you are always ready for the worst, sometimes you even think of the solutions/actions to be taken in the worst case scenario.

Since digitisation took place every person is in the pursuit of being perfect , perfect with their looks , perfect in their profession , perfect for pictures as we use filters on social media to cover all the imperfections we use filters in our daily lives as well , trying to make everything look perfect for the other person but in this process we tend to disappoint ourselves , we are no longer original but a version of ourselves which is pleasing to people this process can be overwhelming and can lead to disappointments when we fail the expectations which makes us unhappy even if we experience negative emotions it is necessary to normalise it ,  to not panic and think of reducing our negative feelings in a healthy way.

How can one reduce pessimism?

Minimise the negative, try to think what if everything works out it is tricky but eventually you will think more about the positive and less of negative, it is not at all bad to be prepared for the worst but hoping for the best is important. Even if something bad happens remember that it is just a phase as time does not stop for anyone and this too will pass. Remember to have patience as this process will take time but by slowly and constantly practising even the negative thoughts can eliminate. Surrounding ourselves with the people who are charged up and motivated will also fuel us with positive feelings as  our environment greatly  impacts our thinking style the important thing to do is to take a learning from our past experiences, instead of letting it shape us we should try to give our experiences a meaning .

References

https://dictionary.apa.org/pessimism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimism