You Can Be Hopeful Without Being Optimistic
Right now, roughly two years into this extremely long day, assuming the worst is the only thing many of us have the energy for. Psychologists call it “defensive pessimism:” the strategy of managing anxiety over an undesirable outcome by lowering expectations to meet it.
Defensive pessimism helps, sometimes, because it forces planning — in thinking through that awful hypothetical, what you’re really doing is coming up with an action plan to mitigate its awfulness.
At this moment, though, there’s no more action to be taken (besides worrying, as The Onion helpfully points out). There’s only waiting. Which means, as the psychologist Art Markman told the New York Times’ Charlie Warzel, that defensive pessimism isn’t doing anyone any favors:
Defensive pessimism is creating a fictitious state. You’re feeling pessimistic but you don’t really believe it. Deep down you think your candidate will win, but you’re telling yourself they won’t, so when the actual outcome happens it’ll hurt less. But that’s not how it works. So really you’ll be paying the price twice. Once for anticipatory period and again if the results don’t go how you want.
In other words, maintaining hope isn’t the same as being naively optimistic about the outcome of this election. It is the emotional equivalent of turning off CNN…
