To set the stage to present three time-tested tools I use when I encounter chronic (toxic?) pessimists kindly ponder how chronic cynics effect you. What do you consider to be the hazards (if any) of engaging (supporting?) people who seem biased toward what’s wrong with life (versus what’s good in life)? Hazards such as increased stress levels. Increased stress levels attack your immune system. (Do you really want to tax your immune system right now?)
- How many people do you associate with who firmly believe their glass is permanently half-empty?
- Do you regularly interact with souls who are 100% convinced there’s absolutely NOTHING we can do about what’s going wrong — other than to preserver as best we can.
- How many times in recent memory have you heard: is it’s only to going to get far worse before it gets better.
Are you — right now — ready to stir things up with those suffering from chronic doom and gloom? Yes! Good! Keep reading. No? Really?Aren’t you to tired of listening to yet another oh-woe-is-me story?
The next time you experience other cough of doom and gloom ask your pessimist this odd question, “May I sneeze in your face?”
Before they respond to your ridiculous question pretend to about to sneeze in their face. Watch their reaction.
Make it clear to die-hard pessimists you’ve become more aware of the hazards of listening to (thus enabling) pessimism. Ensure they understand they can preach their doom-and-gloom stories all they want — just NOT around you!
Image by iStockPhoto.com
Backstory: words are seeds to deeds.
A friends’ suicide rattled me enough to make me reflect on how I enable his pessimism.
I know the hazards of enabling pessimists from first-hand experience. For five years I shared a home with a soul who loved his misery. On August 16, 2016 a kind, gentle, give-the-shirt-of-his-back kind of soul decided to end his life well before his time. Apparently it was far better to die of carbon monoxide asphyxiation than to continue life in a world he was 100% convinced was going to hell in a hand-basket.
Year after year I witnessed his pessimistic roots grow more deeply with one more — the world is going to hell in a hand-basket rant. Rants inspired by yet another:
- priest being caught for sexual abuse (my friend was raised to be a devout Catholic)
- politicians being caught for committing yet another crime
- office politics invading how he thought he should do his j.o.b.
Day after day a parasitic misery consumed his sense of happiness.
While I give my friend props for not falling down conspiracy theory wells, I slowly began to realize he had no time for optimism. In his view silly optimists like me need pessimists like hime to keep it real. (I chuckled when he conceded to the reality the reverse is equally true!)
Sadly my efforts to inspire a sense of hope ended on August 16, 2016 when I got a call from the Police department asking who I was. I had called my friends’ cell phone within hours of his suicide. I explained I was his housemate. In one heart-breaking moment I learned my friend decided life wasn’t worth the effort. With a trifecta of:
- advancing poor health (fueled by increased age, tobacco and alcohol use)
- his pessimist world view and
- his growing disdain for his j.o.b.
he shed his mortal coil. Though I wept at his funeral and still miss his wit and wisdom I also felt a call to action.
My friends’ suicide rattled me enough to make me reflect on how I enable pessimism.
Image by iStockPhoto.com
Each time I listen to yet one more we’re doomed story I offer air to fire. I see more clearly than ever before how optimism fuels pessimism.
Questions to ponder:
- How many pessimists do you enable by tolerating a chronically dire attitude?
- How many souls fill your holiday table or daily routines who sincerely believe it’s going to get far worse before it get’s better.
- When you scroll through your address list how many names would you check off as more often than not — pessimistic?
- Do you tolerate nay-sayers as part of the price you pay for their attention, affection or amoré?
- How much damage control happens post pessimist encounters? What sorts of self care do you practice to cleanse the negative energy doom and gloomers shower upon you. Do you take a hot bath after surviving yet another evening of listening to doom and gloom? Do you numb yourself with whiskey shots to dull your anxiety?
- Maybe you resolve to address your pessimistic preacher by ghosting them.
—
Given the exponentially increasing expanse of pessimism fuel by current affairs, now more than ever it’s time to face head-on the hazards of chronic pessimism. How?
Explore three ideas.
Photo by Shutterstock.com
History documents how humans seem hard-wired to help when asked to help. Asking for help when hope is all but dead requires a sense of optimism. To rekindle optimism, tap into the power of exploring (versus analyzing). Remember we survive and thrive when we explore ways to collectively create solutions to problems. Pessimists feel hope as:
- facts surface
- fictions dissolve
- clarity grows
- solutions arrive.
When I ask chronic pessimists what their solutions are to the trials and tribulations they rally around — I gain awareness of their capacity to engage optimism (if at all).
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Explore your pessimists’ ability / capacity to engage optimism.
The next time you’re confronted with another doom and gloom debate — ask two questions.
A) “Do you want things to get better?” Or …
B) “Do you want things to get worse?”
- Watch / listen closely to their response(s).
- Notice the time they take to respond.
- Do your best to take in their state of being — their truth.
- Pass no judgments.
Exploring (versus analyzing) the A and B questions above allows:
- deeper insights on how to respect a diversity of perspectives.
- time to set healthy boundaries to gain and maintain healthy relationships.
Each time you ask (then possibly explore) the A) get better or B) get worse questions you come to learn what (if any) role optimism plays in their life. When you discover you have a die-hard pessimist on your hands take stock in how that relationship affects / effects not only your life as well as the lives of others you hold near and dear.
Photo by Shumilov Ludmila on Unsplash
Tap into Socrates wisdom: “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Pessimism thrives on illusions of knowing. We feed a sense of knowing by exploring. As we wake-up to a reality there’s always (yes — always) more to explore we discover just how little we really actually know. When pessimists allow themselves the freedom to simply not-know they may entertain optimism by way of an awakened child-like curiosity.
Pessimism is a taught trait.
Curiosity is a born trait!
Allow your sense of curiosity to grow when you meet a pessimist. Remember fire needs air to burn. How much air will you offer a pessimist?
…
To access unlimited posts join Medium.Com — here.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
—
Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com