This was a little thought I had a few days ago while biking. I posted it in finding slope among other things and it recently occured me to drop it here as well. Enjoy!

Pessimism, optimism, realism. Fundamentally, they're mindsets, core perspectives, and how people see the world. Pessimism isn't where someone looks at a situation, sees the good and the bad outcomes, and knowingly picks only the bad ones. It's where someone sees primarily bad options, and picks what feels logical. They don't trick themselves into believing something they know is false. They don't know that there's a good outcome out there because they genuinely can't see it. They don't know they're pessimists because they don't try to be. In fact, realists probably look like optimists to them, jumping to conclusions that - to the pessimist - seem like implausible leaps of faith. And likewise to the optimist. So maybe the scale of optimism and pessimism isn't an objective one, but one fundamentally relative to how we, in our own way, perceive the world.

tags: life