What makes a man embrace pessimism?

24 comments

1. Unhealthy dose of realism.

2. Being constantly degraded, disrespected, undervalued and/or ignored.

3. A series of failures.

4. It’s a soothing school of thought when things don’t go our way. It calms the desire to do more and experience more and get more by making us believe it’s not worth the effort. That is good, but like any medication, becomes poison in the wrong dose.

5. Pessimism is great. I’m either right, or pleasantly surprised.

6. Being faced with reality.

   Most of us work jobs that suck, for a salary that sucks, are lonely and will have to live like this until we’re 75 and too old for most things.

7. “Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist” – George Carlin

8. Life

9. Observing the world around him.

10. Loneliness

11. Accepting that you, as a gender, have lost.. that’s one massive reason..

12. I guess I did because I am a loser that will never amount to anything and will always be broke. Wait, do we accept pessimism from our spouses comments.

13. a male human may be a pessimist, but i would argue such a person is no man in the sense of an emotionally and morally mature person, an adult. having the habit of seeing the world as worse than it is is unmanning yourself. wallowing in self pity is not manly.

14. Feeling insecure about his ability to change his situation.

15. The lack of any results investing in being positive.

    Every pessimist was at one point an optimist (like being a kid for instance). However these individuals at some point realised through event(s) that optimism brought them nothing but more pain, more upset.

    It’s hard to be hurt by something if you don’t expect anything good as an end result. There’s no let down, no reminiscing, no self doubt.

    So over time you start associating that being negative yeilds better results for your mental health and happiness.

16. When those pessimistic beliefs are validated by reality. Once you accept that life is disappointing however you can start to look on the bright side again, as everything bad is to then be expected.

17. Experience.

    I’m broadly optimistic but in a few specific areas I’m remarkably pessimistic and they’re all related to experience and observation.

18. Realities per situations

    I will say this till I die.

    If you don’t have any expectations, you’ll never be disappointed

19. You can’t be disappointed by anything if you always see it in the worse possible light.

20. Either you’re right and not disappointed at all or you’re happy that you were wrong. Win-win situation.

21. Well, you’re either right or pleasantly surprised.

    It’s usually the result of continued negative results, particularly in the areas of life in which he has high interest/investment.

    It’s basically easier than subjecting yourself to potential (probable) disappointment.

22. A seemingly perpetual string of negative and/or net neutral outcomes.

23. It’s often a coping mechanism to offload responsibility for whatever is going on in his life.

24. You get use to a certain type of sadness.