Upside of down

Think there could be an upside of always seeing the downside?

I’m starting to think there might be.

Over the last several weeks of writing, I’ve noticed how often my expectations were exceeded. Though I went into situations anticipating the worst, very often I was surprised by a much more positive outcome.

• A difficult conversation with a peer was received with grace and dignity, despite my concern it would elicit defensiveness and anger.
• Despite being late for a commitment, which I was certain would hinder the progress to be made (due to the meeting’s time constraints), we met and exceeded the expectations of our agenda. 
• My daughter set an outrageous goal for a recent cross-country meet. I feared she’d be crushed when it didn’t materialize; I just didn’t see how it could. Not only did she hit her mark, she blew it out of the water.
• I allocated several weeks of time for edits on a current writing project and received word it will be completed way ahead of my budgeted timeline.

Could pessimism be the outlook bias version of hedging bets in a card game? A way to ensure gains against possible losses? That’s certainly not a purposeful approach on my part, but has been the net result in recent weeks. I definitely still think it’s wise to cultivate optimism, to bring my cognitive default closer to center, but this is the optimistic way to view pessimism, if you will.

So, the upside of always assuming the worst is that you’re often surprised by how great things turn out!

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I almost sound like an optimist now, don’t I?

This post is part of a 31 day series entitled “Think on these things: Learning optimism.” For a full catalog of all the posts, visit the first page in the series by clicking here.