What’s the Fucking Problem with Pessimism? It’s Only Natural!

At the tail end of my freshmen year of high school I realized something, I was a fucking loser. I spent most of my time with video games and my friends, and no time on academia or myself. Not wanting to have the repeat of failed grades and low self-esteem I decided I would join a sport. This would force myself to spend time on my grades, so I could maintain my GPA to compete, and in turn would take away my idle time from Nintendo and place it in personal development. Not knowing anything about sports, and my lack of hand eye coordination, I decided to join the swim team. It also helped that a lot of my friends, and the girl I had a crush on at the time were already on the team. There was only one problem, I didn’t know how to swim. On top of that I had a brush with drowning 3 years prior that kept me out of the water.

Despite my reservations, on the final week of school I marched myself into my counselor’s office and told her for my schedule next year I would like 6^th period swimming in place of P.E. She quickly arranged the schedule and then hurried me out of her office to meet with the kid who had a new shiner. I went home that night elated at the prospects of a change in pace next year. As my family went around the dinner table discussing our day, as the question of “how was your day” came to me I told them that I had signed up for swimming next year. It immediately grew silent. I looked up from my food to see my family looking at me with concerned looks, aside from my father who was bursting with pride, because one of his children was finally joining a sport. As I investigated the concerned faces of my siblings, and mother, and listened to their rebuttals of why I shouldn’t do it, and such practices were not the norm in the family two thoughts occurred to me. One, this was the moment when I finally realized that I am not like the rest of my siblings, I call it my black sheep moment. And two, people who don’t understand your passion will always try to talk you out of your pursuits.

Having the spirit animal of a stubborn ass and harboring a chip on my shoulder from my sibling’s natural ease with academia led me to continue my swimming pursuit, despite the naysayers. The lessons I learned in those 3 years and the structure it provided me instructed me how to utilize that chip I carried into drive. I embraced its presence and used it to spring board me onto the man I am today. But as I think back to that dinner table, and the countless other disapproving head shakes, I can’t help but wonder why people are so prone to disapproval with new ventures, instead of encouraging? Especially when those people are the ones who must like you, because they either gave birth to you, or are stuck with you for at least 18-yrs. of your life.

Much of what we do as humans is habitual. I realized this more than ever the first time I held my oldest son as a newborn. I always had apprehension about holding babies. I was unsure if I could ever be a proper father to one. But the moment they handed my son to me it all vanished instantly. I held him in my arms without any fear, or apprehensive. A feeling of sure and utter wolf-like protection flooded into me. I knew right then and there if anyone tried to do anything to this little one in front of me, I would gut them where they stood without a moment’s hesitation. My fears of being a father in the sense of the tradition image of the leader of the pack vanished the moment I held my son, because of the biological habitual nature of parenting. I would be able to play the part, because the part was already latent in my DNA and only needed to be brought to the surface by being thrust into the situation.

Social media primal needs! Whats next?

Understanding now that human beings behave habitually, helps us to frame the personal pessimism’s that we began today’s conversation with. As humans, we biologically need to eat. We need to sleep. We need to produce. These are habitual urges that become autopilot in us. As a result, when a cog is thrown into the machine, which is seen to disrupt the program, we go on the defensive because that thing is messing with our primal needs. My friend shared the following occurrence with me. One day he and his 5-yr. old daughter were coming out of a grocery store. My friend was on the driver’s side loading groceries into the rear seat, while his daughter was getting into her seat from the passenger side rear door. Being a 5-yr. old she left the door open. As my friend was loading groceries he noticed some skeptical characters walk by, and loitered by the open car door his daughter had just gotten in. My friend finished putting the groceries in the car, and the men in question still stood close to the open door. As my friend quickly came around the car, his had instinctively went to the multitool he kept in his pocket and unfurled the blade. When the men, who had crept a little closer as he rounded the car, saw my friend approaching them with a knife in hand, immediately turned tail and ran, and my friend quickly closed the car door and took off.

As starling as this story is to a parent, it is also very instructive to the topic at hand. My friend, as a father has a biological stance of keeping his daughter safe. The moment something comes in and threatens that state the natural consequence of my friend is to go on the defensive, in this example going so far as to slice another person’s throat if needed. The fight or flight reaction is true for the entire human race when faced with similar situations. When anything that can be perceived as a threat to our state of our primal needs being met, are biological reaction is to turn against that threat and crush it. This threat can take various forms. It can be conspicuous characters in the case of my friend. It can be some new employee at work who is gunning for your position. It can be a sudden drop in the stocks that make up your portfolio. Or it can even be a family member who wants to challenge the social norm and go out for swimming. When my family showered me with pessimism instead of encouragement they were not doing it out of spite, but out biological reaction to something they felt threatened their primal needs being met. For my mother I threatened her child’s safety (my own), since I didn’t know how to swim. For my siblings it was that I threatened the social construct of family routine. I would change pick-up schedule from school, dinnertime, and social time outside of school. My father, opposite to popular opinion of the room was elated, and came to my defense on the rest of the family’s misgivings.

This response of pessimism out of the biological need to protect our primal needs has been a regular occurrence in my lifetime. As I stated at the beginning of this blog I am the black sheep of my family, simply because I march to the beat of my own drummer. As a young man I found it rather annoying. Some of my endeavors did cause me to fall flat on my face, but most of them caused me to soar. Yet to this day when I announce something that is different as to how my family would approach it I am still met with the primal defense of pessimism. Understanding now why my family, and friends for that matter react this way to my endeavors has allowed me to come to grips with the reality that being a naysayer is only natural. When I meet someone, who is never pessimistic at all it makes me either concerned for their mental health or know that they are a mother fucking liar because they are going against their genetic programming. That is why for years I also found those over the top positive thinking self-help gurus a bit of a charlatans. Because it’s not only impossible to be positive all the time, it is also against human nature.

Once we accept the premise of pessimistic responses, the ability to grapple with them becomes conscious. In the example of my family giving me negative responses to my newest venture of swimming. The ability to respond to the criticism occurred once I accepted their views. Looking back on it now, I see my family not as unbelieving tenants, but caring family members who only wanted me to succeed. Their viewpoint was that my success would only be in the path most traveled and tried to push me towards the path they knew as success. In that moment though I only saw their opinions as opposition. But because I recognized their words as opposition I was able to choose one of 2 things: 1.) listen to the words being uttered and shrink under them, or 2.) let the pessimism fuel my venture, whether sink or swim. It just so happened that in this case those truly were my only options once I jumped into the pool.

My 3-yr. old absolute favorite thing in the world...

Truth be told some days the oppositions words where appealing. The days I vomited from the exhaustion of the swimming drills. Or the time I had to go into the deep end for the first time and my feet could not touch the bottom. Those days made the other path look fruitful. But after my own biological preserving pessimism was out of my system I was able to push those thoughts away towards my goal and to borrow a phrase from one of my 2-yr. old favorite Pixar films “just keep swimming.” After facing my apprehension, I was able to place it out of mind and instead fill my thoughts with achievement instead of pessimism.  That is the secret to positive thinking, and tuning out the pessimism, the ability to wait.

Pessimism will always come, whether from you, or others, because it is a programed defense mechanism. The test is once it appears can you weather it? Can you hold the dumbbell at 90◦ long enough that the negative thoughts die out from within and without? Can you wait out the bad press of mind and paper? If you can you will see a surprising consistency with it, criticism is short lived, but success is eternal. History is full of figures with atrocities. George Washington owned slaves. Christopher Columbus brutalized the indigenous people of the Americas. Ty Cobb beat a man to death. Yet when we speak of these figures in history class all that is mentioned is Washington the President, Columbus the discover of American, Ty Cobb the hall of famer. These pessimistic deeds are long forgotten by the clamor that history tells regarding their ability to keep their course and accomplish the deeds they set out to do.

In the 24-hour news cycle that is your life news is short lived. So, the next time you start a new endeavor and are met with pessimism just wait it out. Some other thing will pop up for people to impose upon, and you will find yourself delivered. If you can wait out your own negative thinking, you can weather whatever pessimism the world will throw your way. In the end I won my family over with my consistency in swimming. Slowly the defensive pessimism turned towards encouragement, and as we speak of it now they say nothing but positive things about my swimming experience. It would have been nice to have those words at the get-go though.