Optimistic Realism

Few things have made me angrier than the words “Defensive Pessimism.”  I was en route to an alumni mixer for my college and tuned into my favorite news radio station for the ride – to catch up on anything important I had missed in the world events during the day – and I became furious.  The guest on the talk show sounded oh so erudite explaining Defensive Pessimism as though it were the greatest thing since psychological sliced bread.

As its experts define, Defensive Pessimism is an anxiety-management strategy whose practitioners “expect the worst and spend lots of time and energy mentally rehearsing, in vivid, daunting detail, exactly how things might go wrong.”[1]

The examples the author gives include worrying before a business presentation that “the PowerPoint might fail, that the microphone will go dead, that – worst of all – they will stare out at the audience and go blank”[2] or “Before a dinner party, (Defensive Pessimists) imagine that the new neighbors will clash with the old and the sushi will give everyone food poisoning.”[3]

Sounds healthy, right?

If you hear about it on the radio or anywhere else and it resonates with popular models that expecting the worst is a sensible approach to life, don’t get too comfortable with that interpretation.  I picked up a book on the topic by one of its experts and have to tell you this author is an optimist in denial.  She just packages it under a misnomer.

I think most of us will agree Optimistic Realism is a better way to go.  More on that later.

This author continues, “Defensive Pessimism is a strategy that helps us work through our anxious thoughts rather than denying them, so that we may achieve our goals.”[4]

This only makes sense based on the premise that optimists, or Strategic Optimists as she calls them, are not strategic at all.  Instead, she portrays them as happy-go-lucky, unrealistic and narcissistic airheads who don’t really plan for things or make provisions for things going awry; their strategy is simply to trust that we should “Relax – It’ll all work out.”[5]

I’d rather consider this Defensive Pessimism/Strategic Optimism issue a common sense debate.  Per the Defensive Pessimism doctrine, you should convince yourself the worst case scenario is going to happen.

The most likely outcome, after repeatedly implementing this strategy, is that your results become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You are therefore glad with anything better than the worst possible result; you bargain down your expectations to the very least satisfying/saddest/most tragic outcome so reality has no place to go but up.

Guess what?  That’s about the least emotionally competent, counterproductive, most-destined-to-failure strategy I have ever heard.

The author only makes passing reference to how that is not what she means.  That Defensive Pessimists have the fortitude to keep chugging past all of that doubt and succeed.

What happens when you have reduced your paradigm so far that the result surpasses expectation and then, in time, you realize you could have had much better?  You wanted, were willing to work for and probably deserved much more.  Great.  What do you do then?

Whatever happened to setting a goal, considering the strategies, the risks and benefits of each – and then once you are satisfied you have done the appropriate prep work, proceeding with faith that all will go well.  And if it doesn’t you have the pieces in place to deal with it properly?  That is what I referenced above, Optimistic Realism.

If you have not read Jim Collins’ Good to Great, I suggest you do so ASAP.  Boiling one of it’s bigger messages down to its essence, Collins suggests facing the bald facts, the likely outcomes, the worst things that could happen – and holding steadfast onto the belief that the best can happen if you commit yourself to it and take rational action to pursue it.  Not convincing yourself the worst is likely to happen and trying to capitalize on your anxiety to avoid it.

Think about this in your life’s context.  If you need some help and recall my 15 Years Ago series over the last two weeks, let’s frame it thusly; if my doctors, family or friends had believed the medical precedent for head trauma cases like mine, they would not have done as much as they did to save me.

If most medical professionals made it habit to expect the worst will happen on the chance that could drive them to outperform, it’s not likely any of us would have some incredible, inspiring stories.

If most of us had bargained ourselves down to the most likely worst case scenario to relieve any anxiety we may have felt about our likelihood to achieve what we really want, many of us would not be happy, functional adults.

Toward the beginning of college, I recall the first time I heard the “Have a Little Faith in Me” song in a long time.  I started crying uncontrollably.  Sure, the song about a romantic relationship, but let’s look at the lyrics:

 

And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall
Just have a little faith in me.

  

… I will hold you up, I will hold you up
And your love, gives me strength enough to
Have a little faith in me

 

If that’s what we want in a relationship someday, then let that be so.  However, let’s apply it to our relationship with ourselves.

At the moment I reheard that song, I was 18, remembered myself before the accident as an accomplished student, a relatively secure, lovable person and I trusted myself.  After the accident, I did not feel any connection to that person.  I felt awkward, needy and incompetent.  I felt a genuine anxiety I would never return to someone I could trust or respect.

At that point, it seemed a heck of a lot easier to convince myself I would be happy redefining my goals and reframing my whole success paradigm based on the most likely outcome.  Although my situational specifics are different from yours, I am sure all of us have hit a low like that at some point.

During those times, convincing ourselves our worst fears were going to happen and using that anxiety to propel us was not an option.  We were not yet strong enough to do so.  Maybe that is not our style anyway.  Not for most of us.

And then I heard that song. And then I felt the hot, syrupy tears stream down my face.

How the hell do I dare pretend for one minute that I will be happy expecting anything less than a full recovery?

How the hell do any of us risk expecting the worst in order to generate the energy to make the responsible, common sense provisions we should make anyway?   How do we justify bargaining down our expectations without realizing that approach may eventually convince us the worst is all we deserve?

If all of society did that, we would all be temporarily comfortable, but largely unsatisfied people.  Wouldn’t we all live semi-contented lives as we continued building our own fear of failure to rationalize not taking any risks?

Let’s get granular: you would not have made the team, gotten the part, gotten into that college or out of that relationship, gotten the job, overcome that challenge or, frankly, believed in yourself at any point in your life when that faith in yourself was the precise determining factor from which all success in the situation flowed.  To hell with worst case scenarios.

While it might be easier for some people to convince themselves they could be happy always expecting the least favorable outcome, none of us have ever accomplished anything extraordinary by buying into that.

The very psychology experts who coined the term “Defensive Pessimism” would not have had the outrageous audacity to propagate the idea that mentality is healthy if they did not believe they could achieve an unlikely success by marketing it.  To boast their view is “contrarian.”

I’d prefer to call them Tasteless Opportunists; they have come up with a tacky, self-defeating idea, they expound upon it at a time when the economy looks bleak and they throw their educational credentials behind it to add some false credence.  Good luck to them in the karma department.

I’d much rather find myself driven by anxiety from the likely, battled by an earnest desire to achieve and belief that’s exactly what I will do than commit myself to expect the worst in order to protect myself from being disappointed.

And shame on the professionals who would ever profess that’s healthier than always stoking faith in yourself to work toward and deserve what you honestly want.

What a shameful waste it would be to settle for something that’s even a fraction of what we want to avoid the fear that we are not likely to achieve any more than that.

As the author writes at the end of the book, “Defensive Pessimists do, however, risk getting stuck in the forest if they can’t make the transition from focusing on bad things that might happen to focusing on how to prevent those things from happening,”[2] which is exactly what is most likely to happen if we always expect the worst.

“They need to be able to look up and follow the path. They may also fail to see the beauty of the forest if all they think about and remember is their worry about tripping over branches.”[3]

Sounds to me like Optimistic Realism.

 

And when your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
Come here darling, from a whisper start
And have a little faith in me

And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall
Just have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me[9]

---

 

[1] Norem, Julie K., Ph.D.  (2001).  The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, p. 1.  Cambridge, MA:  Perseus Books.

[2] Ibid, p. 2.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, p. 3.

[5] Ibid, p. 2.

[6] Hiatt, John.  (1987).  Have a Little Faith in Me.  Santa Monica, CA:  Universal Music Publishing Group.

[7] Norem, Julie K., Ph.D.  (2001).  The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, p. 195.  Cambridge, MA:  Perseus Books.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Hiatt, John.  (1987).  Have a Little Faith in MeSanta Monica, CA:  Universal Music Publishing Group.

Comments

[Mishaela]

bravo, paige. this hit HOME. i have been dealing with exactly this tendency in myself and i like your take. it is what i am learning to practice everyday. i am sooooooo glad i met you that day in the coffee shop and started reading your blog! :)

cheers.

[Paige]

Thank you, Beauty! I am glad that entry resonates with you and feel honored you continue to read this blog. I am very happy we met that day and hope all is well with you. Cheers!