Virtues of the Pessimist

A counseling psychologist in the Catholic Times gives her answer to persons who have a habit of remembering the bad things that keep them from enjoying the present. She explains that negative thoughts are not all bad for they can help reduce anxiety and help growth.

Humans can't live without thinking. We are always thinking about something. The average person thinks about something different, every 5 seconds. We live with countless thoughts and she quotes an authority who says that most people have from 50 to 60,000 different thoughts during a 20 hour day.

She agrees and consequently, she says, many of those thoughts are negative. She mentions the book written by a psychologist, Julie Norem: The Postive Power of Negative Thinking. She insists on the strengths of pessimists who can be anxious about results and imagine the worst but can succeed and live happily. They are able to manage anxiety and do well.

The 'defensive pessimists' in this book are those who anticipate negative outcomes and use their worries and anxieties appropriately to prevent bad results. In the light of the possibility of something going wrong, they try to anticipate the worst outcome and make efforts to prevent it.

The problem is seeing 'negative thoughts' as unconditionally bad, rather than seeing everything as unconditionally positive. Past experiences teach us that things may go wrong, remembering that bad things can happen and keeping expectations low; negative thoughts can help us to grow. We want to forget the mistakes of the past, but it's not the right answer to live as an unconditional optimist.

There is a movie called: Together with the Gods-Sin and Punishment, which was shown last year. In the plot, there is a process of trials for 49 days after the death of a human being. In these 49 days, the dead man is judged on how he lived his life and reincarnation is decided. This is based on the Buddhists understanding of life after death. It was the second most popular movie in Korean film history.

In the movie there are 7 hells dealing with a different aspect of a person's life: causing the death of another, sloth, deceit, cold-heartedness, betrayal, violence and filial impiety. Those who were assigned to defend the hero put in a good word defending him. In life, many people commit wrongs and only a few have the courage to apologize, ask for forgiveness and forgive others. The hero because of his apologies and forgiving others, is forgiven and granted reincarnation back to the world.

We usually don't want to look back at our past mistakes. After seeing the movie, she reflected on her past mistakes. Apologizing for our mistakes and asking for forgiveness and forgiving others is something that we can all do in this life. Seeing the negative, allows us to change and begin living a new life in the here and now, preparing for death and our own final judgment. In preparing for the future we don't cover up our past, but learn from it and see things as they are—real forgiveness and reconciliation.