A while back I mentioned a book called Quiet by Susan Cain, whose premising thesis is that “… the single
most important aspect of personality… is where we fall on the
introvert-extrovert spectrum.”
In her data-driven dissertation validating the “up-side” of
introvertism, Ms. Cain argues persuasively on its behalf, a tough sell in a
culture that places a substantially higher value on its opposite.
(Cain references Asian Silicon Valley tech whizzes, who are culturally
conditioned to listen and believe that most people “speak nonsense” feeling
pressured to sign up for weekend “Assertive Training” classes so that they too can speak “nonsense”, thus increasing
their chances of advancing in their careers.)
Although I gleaned illuminating information for Ms. Cain’s
book, it is my contention that, first, the most important aspect of personality
is not where we fall on the
introvert-extrovert spectrum and second, that there is an even less culturally
popular attribute in our culture than “introvert”, making that characteristic an even harder
sell as positive attribute.
It is my contention that the most important aspect of personality
is where we fall not on the
introvert-extrovert spectrum but where we fall on the optimist-pessimist spectrum, and that although introverts get less respect
than they deserve, pessimists
attacked as infuriating “Captain Bring-Downs” who should be stamped out or
forcibly reprogrammed.
For their own good!
Thoughts of this character dichotomy crossed my mind when I
was thinking with relief recently about not working on Saturday Night Live, focusing specifically on the immense volume of
material required, paired with the unstoppable speed with which that material
needed to be delivered.
Final Determination:
Not for me.
For a moment, as an exercise, I imagined what an alternate optimist’s perception on that situation
might be. And it hit me that optimists
would focus on the fact that, with so much material required so quickly, each
individual effort loses its comparative significance, making the stakes for
each submission considerably lower. As
in,
“If you miss one bus, there is always another in a few
minutes.”
Optimists instinctively understand that with this
precipitous schedule, if you lay an egg one week, you can rapidly redeem
yourself the next. With this way of thinking,
a “minus” is interpreted as a “plus”, a terrible “Yikes!” situation becoming a liberating
“Yay!”
I shall not burden you with a boring litany of
optimistically-driven “success stories.”
“Walked on the moon” – blah, blah – “found a miracle cure for”… you know
the argument – optimism gets stuff done.
Unfortunately, it is demonstrably harder to mount an rrespectable
counter-argument for pessimism, there being an understandable lack of
accumulated statistics.
Why?
Because nobody keeps track of the shots you don’t take.
How many disasters were happily averted by a timely and
considered
“I would think twice before you did that”
that the “you” in that sentence actually listened to?
Nobody knows.
I was recently given a book entitled “50 Canadians Who
Changed The World.” There is no
paralleling book entitled, “50 Canadians Who Kept People From Going Off The
Deep End And Regretting It For The Rest Of Their Lives.”
The “negative” is neither provable nor, lacking verifiable evidence,
measurable. Nor is pessimism sexy, the
stuff of memorable myths and movies.
Pessimism is the “brakes” – sensible, practical, but generically
uninspiring.
“The Man Who Thought The Better Of Climbing Mount Everest”
does not have the makings of an “instant classic.”
The two opposing attributes are only on an equal footing in
the “Dueling Aphorisms” arena – “Better safe than sorry.” versus “He who
hesitates is lost.”, which by the way is woefully incomplete, the more accurate
version being that “He who doesn’t
hesitate is just as likely, and in many cases – as with the over-confident
driver who refuses to ask directions – even more
likely to be lost.” Getting lost has
nothing to do with hesitating. It has to
do with going the wrong way.
“Spoken like a pessimist.”
But I have evidence.
“Pessimists always
have evidence.”
So do optimists. They
just don’t listen to it!
“Children! Please!”
Sorry.
Okay, since pessimists are unable to point to the formidable
record of “Pessimistic Accomplishments” – not
because there aren’t any but because nobody paid any attention to them when
they were happening – we are left, as the only form of evidence, with
“Optimistic Decisions That Went Seriously Haywire.”
First example that comes to mind:
The Donner Party.
DONNER PARTY
OPTIMIST: “Come on, boys! We are going through the Sierras!”
DONNER PARTY
PESSIMIST: “In the winter?”
DONNER PARTY
OPTIMIST: “Ah, yes, the always
agreeable ‘Voice of Doom.’ If it were up
to you, sir, we would never have left Missouri.”
DONNER PARTY
PESSIMIST: “This is demonstrably
different.”
DONNER PARTY
OPTIMIST: “Wah! Wah! Wah!’
Take a chance for a change, will you?”
DONNER PARTY
PESSIMIST: “I do take chances. I just don’t take ridiculous chances.”
DONNER PARTY
OPTIMIST: “Come on, now. What’s the worst that could happen?”
DONNER PARTY
PESSIMIST: “We get stranded in
the mountains and we end up eating each other to stay alive.”
DONNER PARTY
OPTIMIST: “Well if that happens, we know who we’ll eat first!”
That story was
duly recorded. They rejected the
pessimist, and the only item on the menu was “Each Other.”
Let me be clear here.
I am not saying that everyone should be a pessimist. Otherwise, we’d be inundated with song lyrics
like,
Gray skies
Raining on me…
I am also not saying that pessimists are always right. Or Columbus would have said,
“That guy may be crazy, but do I really want to risk sailing
off the edge of the earth?”
What I am saying
is, when a pessimist expresses an opinion, do not roll your eyes and wait for
them to stop talking.
Listen.
You might miss walking on the moon.
But you might also avoid becoming a Sierra Nevada ice
sculpture with missing parts.
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