Pessimists survive longer according to study

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17 Mar 2013, 11:32 am

Optimist thinks the glass is half full.
Pessimists think it's half empty.
Realists wonder what's in the glass.
Opportunists drink the glass when no one is looking.

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trollcatman
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17 Mar 2013, 11:37 am

Tensu wrote:

trollcatman wrote:

That is because pessimists are often pleasantly surprised. They start the day with low expectations and then it turns out that either they are right, or the day turns out even better than they thought.
Optimists on the other hand live their life as a continuous string of disappointments.

That is not what pessimism means.

Pessimism is not having low expectations, it is focusing on the negative. Pessimists do not have pleasant surprises because they do not focus on the good, they focus on the bad. Even if their day is better than expected, they still fixate on what went wrong.

Optimism is not having high expectations, it is looking on the bright side. Optimists do not have a continual string of disappointments because they do not focus on the negative. Even if their day was worse than expected, they fixate on what went right.

I have the feeling this study's results has more to do with people not understanding what those words mean than pessimists actually living longer.

Pessimism and optimism are going down the same road that irony, chaos, and decimate travelled before them.

Noun
pessimism (usually uncountable; plural pessimisms)
1. A general belief that bad things will happen.
2. The doctrine that this world is the worst of all possible worlds.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pessimism

ruveyn
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17 Mar 2013, 12:37 pm

In short. good sense. Expect the worst and rejoice in anything good that happens to happen. It is a rare event.

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trollcatman
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17 Mar 2013, 1:38 pm

And optimism can be dangerous. People in the financial world overestimating the (future) value of their assets, politicians who live in a fairytale world. "The Greek government will pay us back all the money we loaned them, with interest)". Of course that never happened.

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17 Mar 2013, 7:19 pm

trollcatman wrote:

Tensu wrote:

trollcatman wrote:

A lot of dictionaries give incorrect definitions of words because misuse of them is so widespread. Many just give up fighting it and say that the definition changed. If any dictionary can be counted on to give the wrong definition of a widely misused word, it is wiktionary.

That still is not what pessimism means.

GGPViper
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17 Mar 2013, 8:36 pm

This might come as a surprise to you, Tensu, but you are not in a position to pass final judgement on what pessimism is. No one is.

By the way: The concept of pessimism used in the study mentioned by the OP can be traced back to the writings of Seneca The Younger in De Ira, almost 2,000 years ago.

Tell me, what is your claim of authority?

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17 Mar 2013, 11:11 pm

My ex was a pessimist. He was never pleasantly surprised because
A. If he was given a million dollars, the first thing he'd do would be to lament about how everyone would be after him for money.
B. When good things happened to him, he immediately focussed on everything that was sure to go wrong the next day (and which normally didn't :roll: ).

He was a million times more miserable than he needed to be,

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17 Mar 2013, 11:15 pm

So is it between a short, cheery life and a long, depressing one?

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18 Mar 2013, 12:32 am

tweety_fan wrote:

OLDER people who look on the darker side of life tend to live longer than optimists

Maybe it just seems longer.

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18 Mar 2013, 8:36 am

Shatbat wrote:

So is it between a short, cheery life and a long, depressing one?

I'm already depressed, so it's natural that my life will be long and miserable.

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18 Mar 2013, 10:03 am

Who_Am_I wrote:

).

He was a million times more miserable than he needed to be,

Did he have a picture of Eyor on his wall?

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18 Mar 2013, 1:19 pm

Once when I was depressed I thought about getting an Eeyore Tattoo.Glad I didn't.

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FireoftheStorm
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18 Mar 2013, 5:16 pm

What do you want? Quality or quantity of life?

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19 Mar 2013, 4:01 am

My god is Eyore and through him I will have miserable life eternal.

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19 Mar 2013, 8:29 am

DerStadtschutz wrote:

I wish an ice cream truck would run me over...

I nearly got mowed down by a florist's van that ran a red light as I was crossing the street. What a gorgeous funeral that would've been.

But yeah, my husband claims to be an optimist, and he acts like he's been stabbed in the heart every time somebody behaves rudely or selfishly toward him. :duh:

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19 Mar 2013, 9:34 am

Pessimists may live longer, but I'll bet that their final years are miserable.

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