So, what precisely does it involve?
The Power of Pessimism
If we tell someone that we don’t think things are going to work out as we hoped,
then they’ll often tell us that we need to be ‘more optimistic’.
There’s even a song that tells us to
‘accentuate the positive’ and ‘eliminate
the negative’. The general consensus is
clear: being positive is a good thing and
being anything other than positive is
unacceptable.
But is this really the best way for us to
approach our problems? Or is it perhaps actually quite damaging to constantly be
blinded by optimism? Does it leave us vulnerable to disappointment and potentially
easily caught off guard? Is expected life to be constantly ‘sunshine and rainbows’ the
precise opposite of a warrior mindset?
Wouldn’t a warrior accept and embrace the fact that life is going to be hard? And
then toughen themselves up to deal with it?
That’s the view held by stoics at least and when you delve into the philosophy a little,
you might find that they actually make a very good case for pessimism.
The Central Ideas of Stoicism
The general gist of stoicism is not
to try and ‘shut out’ negativity