HIS OPTIMISM GONE FREE

As Pyle wryly quotes: “When the last man takes to his grave, there will be a coyote on hand to lift his leg over the marker.” As Pyle notes as an example, in the early 20 th Century, we Americans tried with great effort to exterminate the coyote, and succeeded only in driving it to live – happily – across the continent. We can mess it up for certain, we can tamper and tinker and pollute and poison it, abuse it until it is a far cry from what it once was…but destroy it? Not a chance.

It’s selfish in that we as a species are doing these things to save our own genetic butts, to ensure that we don’t go the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo birds, wiped off the map – in our case – by our own doing.Īnd, it’s arrogant for humans to believe we could destroy nature. In brief, Pyle’s essay expresses the realistic viewpoint that the environmental movement, the desire by humans to save the last vestiges of our eroding wild places to staunch the aortal bleed of carbon emissions and slow our warming climate (yes, it’s real, and it’s happening now) to put back into place the pieces of our earth puzzle we as a species have broken, misplaced, and mangled over centuries…all of this is selfish, or arrogant, or both. Much decried when published as pessimistic and defeatist, Pyle’s words and perspectives in his essay, “Nature Bats Last,” resonated with me far more than the idealistic viewpoints of his peers Quammen, Brower, Thoreau, and more. If you are being suicidal, we would suggest you immediately call up a suicide prevention helpline - e.g.I was in my junior year in high school – way back in 1990 – when Robert Michael Pyle’s words danced off the pages of the Norton Book of Nature Writing. We are not a medical service or suicide prevention helpline. The ability to deal with stress, anxiety, depression and pressures of all kinds and from many sources - personal, societal, peer Through personalized guidance, our Experts can help you develop:Ī productive and satisfying work-life balanceĪ more focused approach towards achieving your goals

HIS OPTIMISM GONE FREE

It anonymously connects you with the right expert consisting of psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, life coaches, career guides and people with rich and deep life experience, who understand you and guide you through completely confidential individual sessions (through free online chats). Do you want more information on optimism and pessimism? Our experts at YourDOST are the best ones to ask!Īt YourDOST, we provide an online counselling and emotional support platform designed to foster mental health. So there you have it, the three most important questions about pessimism answered. But keep your attitude what Seligman calls “flexible optimism”, that is, be optimistic most of the time, but use pessimism as a tool when the cost of failure is high. If the cost of failure is high, pessimism is the way to go. The trick is in asking yourself, ‘What is the cost of failure?”. However, the ‘delusion’ of optimists is “self-serving”.Ī little bit of pessimism is good for you, and a few pessimists here and there are probably good for a company too. Given, pessimists have a more realistic and accurate version of what is happening. And finally, when does pessimism come in handy?Īccording to Martin E Seligman in his book, ‘ Learned Optimism’, So if the voice in your head is saying that things will never be right and that it is all your fault, change that voice. So change the story you tell yourself, and well, change your life. Depression is nothing but incoherent account of what has happened, a “life story gone awry”. Tell yourself a happy story about what is going on in your life. Next, how do you become an optimist?Īccording to renowned psychologist, Michele Crossley, So ultimately, pessimists quit and they are overcome with a sense of hopelessness while optimists have a greater chance of succeeding. Need we go on about why you should give optimism a chance? We anyway will! When confronted with a hard time, optimists view it as a challenge to overcome, and give it their best.

Optimists on the other hand believe that the bad stuff lasts for just some time, it happens for a reason and that it is not their fault. They think bad stuff last forever, they don’t think bad things happen for a reason and they assume that it is all their fault. There are three characteristics of pessimists: UPenn professor and happiness expert Martin Seligman tells us that, How do you know if you are a pessimist?ġ.How do you know if you are a pessimist?.We try and answer 3 questions, all answers backed by research, This post is about optimism and pessimism.

His optimism gone