Optimist or Pessimist?

I have just been looking back at old posts on ‘another site’.  All comments gone.  Can you fill them back in please?

I always thought of myself as a bit of an optimist. I always try to see the positive in people. If there is a difficult situation I try and find a positive solution.
“Everything will be all right” could be said to be my motto.
But I think I’m changing as I get older. (Am I changing into a grumpy old woman?)
I’ll give an example.
We were running late. I hate being late. (Another oft repeated phrase.)
“It’s OK,” said the Cyclomaniac. “We have nearly an hour before we need to get there…”
I looked at my watch,
“Only just over three quarters of an hour,” I said. “We are going to be late.”

Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full type of person? And does it change with age?

http://pseu1.wordpress.com/

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66 thoughts on “Optimist or Pessimist?”

  2. Glass half full here, Nym, but I hate being late.

    Re restoration of our old comments: it isn’t going to happen; so the glass is most certainly empty on this one. I don’t think that I am stupidly optimistic, and am always in favour of positive solutions. I don’t think it’s getting older, more a realistic appraisal of the situation.

  3. Sounds reasonable to me, Ara. ‘Realistic appraisal of the situation.’

    I hadn’t realised how many comments had been lost on old blogs as I hadn’t looked until now.

  6. I remember this one, Nym.

    There weren’t many ‘glass half empty’ people on the thread, but (sadly) I was one. Pessimists die young, but I’m resigned to my fate. 😉

    PS There was at least one other pessimist on the thread and I know I liked her very much :). Who was she?

  9. Sorry, yes Nym: I’m being thick! I can remember the post but I was probably half-full glass inclined, and I have always disliked being late. I go to great lengths to persuade others that it is important but they just ignore me!

    What a pain though, I didn’t think my posts were of great significance but the comments were interesting.

  10. When my glass is half empty I call for another full one so I end up with a glass and a half, so what does that make me? No Cadbury jokes please.

  11. I didn’t see this before so I am new to this post!

    Tiredness, overwork, being hurried, feeling unwell leave me more glass half empty.
    Being relaxed, having time, feeling healthy, warm sunshine and I’m more likely to be glass half full.

    Somewhere in the middle, there are the times where I am busy but not over stretched and i like to feel I can look at a situation and be neither half empty or half full, just observing and not judging.

  18. I seem to (partly) remember a long winded joke which ended with the punch line:

    Cavalries make them and they cover them in chocolate.

    Can anyone remember the rest?

  21. oldmovieguy :

    When my glass is half empty I call for another full one so I end up with a glass and a half, so what does that make me? No Cadbury jokes please.

    Just what OMG said!

  22. ‘A glass and a half (of milk) in every bar’ is a long standing slogan for Cadburys Chocolate bars. Now you have puzzled me with the reference to the Simpsons.

    talking of which…..I went to the Doctors the other day complaining of loss of hearing, she said, ‘what are the symptoms’, I replied, ‘a cartoon family on TV painted yellow.

    I’ll get me coat.

  24. The Simpson’s ref from Isobel goes back to a problem here on Word Press when I tried to add links to my own page. I kept getting a message
    “I see you’ve played knifey spoony before.” That is from the Simpson’s.

  31. I should be washing my hair, or more precisely, washing the baby sick out of it. NIce…

  34. oldmovieguy :

    When my glass is half empty I call for another full one so I end up with a glass and a half, so what does that make me? No Cadbury jokes please.

    Drunk?

    Greedy?

    Happy?

  35. I’m supposed to be sorting GCSEs out as well – not my own though but for the kids I teach. Actually, there are some absolutely cracking poems in there this year, Pseu.

  36. Now there IS

    claire2 :

    OMG; And a large one for me, please. Make sure it’s full, not empty!

    Now that IS an idea, we should all (as many on DnMyT as can make it) agree a time, the same bottle of wine, the same size glass and all start drinking at the same moment, Bearsey can install something that makes a ‘ping’ sound at a reasonable pace so we all drink at the same time and just chat, now thats what I call an interactive internet experience.

  39. OMG; oh my god, what a great idea! My heavy drinking you under t’table days are long gone, alas. Now I get merry on a single glass; completely pishhed on a second..but yes. Interactive drinking. Maybe you should blog about it;)

  40. Levent; you, pessimistic? Jamais! Although I do seem to like the ones with the darkest humour…

  41. claire2
    I’ll see what I can come up with, have to go for a while, go easy with the second glass but enjoy it.

  43. Claire, I think I fear like hell of diappointment. Which is why I tend to see the worst possibility first. Read the link, you will see what I’m trying to say.

    Btw, have yo read my last post? I think yo may like it.

  44. Hi Pseu. I’m definitely glass half full – and top it up if you would be so kind, especially if it happens to be good quality fizz. 🙂

    I can’t relate to the desire to want to be early for anything. All my friends have this worry that they had better allow half an hour extra in case something dreadful happens. My view is that everything will be fine. Why worry?

    If I’m ever early it’s probably a mistake – unless it’s a job interview when it’s prudent to leave a little lee-way.

    I like to be on time but I don’t particularly worry if I’m a couple of minutes late. My sense of time has always been skewed. I believe a minute is actually longer by about…say thirty seconds. It adds up during the day.

    Looking forward to OMG’s mass drinking session. I don’t have a glass at my elbow at the moment but there is an opened bottle of Brumont Tannat-Merlot downstairs which wouldn’t kill me to pour.

  45. OMG; sounds intriguing. Alas, a glass, or a second, there is none; for I, must fly, and clean anon.
    Crap poem, but ye get me drift 😉

  49. Flavia was one of the very best. She had great taste in music … loved Dylan and Radiohead.

    I wondr why she doesn’t blog anymore?

  51. I miss her, Brendano, but I’m glad she’s not blogging on MyT, in a way. I hope you understand why I say that.

  52. Thanks, Levent … you’re doing a great job! Who needs Amicus? 🙂

    Yes, I do, Bilby. It was very brave of her to post her serial novel there. She was a very nice, gentle, fun person (and no doubt still is!).

  54. She got a book deal, didn’t she, in the end. Lucky girl! BUt no surprise though. God I smell of baby sick; must stop messing on here.

  56. We went next door for drinks earlier, Claire. My perfectly dressed, coiffed perfumed, cut-glass neighbour declared that I had a whiff of curry about me. Perfectly true as I had been concocting in the Kitchen. I swear I saw her nostrils flare. Luckily, we’re good friends … and it’s probably better than baby sick. 🙂

  57. I’m a half full person – except when I’m not! It depends on the situation and the people involved. A touch of realism entered my soul after I’d been proved wrong too many times.

    … and I am a fanatic about time keeping and people who waste my time. I’ll probably get slaughtered for this, but I consider it the height of bad manners for people to think that their time is more important than mine…

    I once turned up for a hospital appointment to find that there were about 20 people ahead of me. I took a number and said I’ll be back in an hour. The nurse told me I couldn’t do that and I said ‘Just watch me’…

    I duly turned up an hour later, was shown into the doctor – who leapt to his feet, shook my hand and said that he wished a few more people did what I had done so that the hospital would stop double and triple booking appointments.

    That isn’t the first time I’ve done that and it won’t be the last.

  58. As might be expected from an old soldier, I’m a ‘keep a spare bottle in the ready-rounds locker’ type 🙂

    And I hate lateness – it’s bad manners, saying, in so many words, ‘my time is worth more than yours.’

  59. Last call for the punctual people!
    Life is too short for getting annoyed for getting cross on such. Relax and join the right path. 😆

  60. I always have been a pessimist, which basically translates as a realist 🙂

    For my last 8 years at work I was an software project manager. There are two very simple rules to observe in project management:

    1) If it can go wrong, it will go wrong!

    2) If it cannot possibly go wrong, it will go wrong.

    The half-empty glass thing is a matter of context. If you are drinking from it, it is half empty, if you are topping it up, it is half full!

  62. Bravo22cc, I am with you on the punctuality, and ‘my time is worth more than yours.’
    I used to have a friend (note, used to) who was always late. She would arrive smiling, being charming having kept everyone waiting. She always had an excuse. But after a while it just didn’t wash.

  63. I hate lateness – in others. But alas, I am one of life’s eternal latecomers; quelle honte… 😉

  66. Isobel – I, too, used to have such a friend. When I finally told her I thought it was bad manners – she stomped off and never spoke again…

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