The Power of Pessimism
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The fire of debate has been stoked once more. Pessimism or optimism? Much has been said about the powers of positive thinking but contrary to popular belief, scepticism has it rewards too, especially if it is a product of gumption and common sense.
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YOU ARE advised to take everything in this article with a pinch of salt. An extremely large pinch of salt, for this is an ode to scepticism. It is manna from heaven for pessimists and a small cauldron of fire and brimstone for optimists. One might venture to say that the thoughts expressed in these lines stem from a desire to enlighten the public at large about the many benefits of pessimism. But that would only be partially true. It is more a blunt statement than a social service message.
Much of this spiel contains plain inferences drawn from the vitriolic vapours emanating off the dark crucible of civilisation. In other words, we are going to try and show by the illustrative examples sketched by experience, that pessimism in mild quantities can sometimes be a good thing.
But can it? Predictably and paradoxically, optimists say yes and pessimists themselves say no. The myth is that unless you think positively and positively only, you cannot make much headway in whatever you want to do. The mythical part of this statement is `positively only'. It is true that if you look around and see only gloom and despair, you are unlikely to meet that fifteen-minute deadline, or get a promotion, or find a job for that matter. But conversely, if you think positively and positively only, you may get a job, but you will lose that life-saving contract because you thought your client would be bowled over by the raggedy ill-defined proposal your team-mate cooked up in fifteen minutes. Somewhere in the heart of your sub-conscious a voice told you how horribly bad it was, but the echoes of `think positive' drowned it out. So much for your self-help books!
It is not that it is all bunk. There is much to thinking positively. But what happens with frightening regularity is that when people are told to stop thinking negatively, they stop thinking altogether. In the process of training their minds to overcome negative thoughts and emotions, they develop a filtering mechanism that allows only positive feelings to pass through.
As a result, niggling doubts that are a product of natural gumption and common sense are crushed in the bud. This sort of systematic brainwashing is not uncommon. There are droves of books and newspaper clippings that drone on about the power of positive thinking and completely ignore the virtues of scepticism. What probably makes matters worse is, people actually start believing in that stuff.
Take Mr Rai for instance. He worked a cruel ten-to-eight shift for five years. Over a period of time, he had become a good judge of character. He had to. His job was to assess developmental projects and find out if they were feasible for his firm to finance. Early in his job, he had realised that understanding people would be the key to his success. And so, over time, his brain had stewed in the boiling vat of cynicism and developed senses that enabled him to smell a conman at twenty paces. If a client would come in with shifty eyes and shuffling feet, a little thing in his head would tell him to be alert. If another assured the company of outrageous returns but displayed fidgeting signs of nervousness, his keen eye would pick him out to be the fraud he was. Unfortunately, tragedy struck. His company decided to modernise itself. And by modernising itself it meant to do everything its contemporaries did. It brought in an agglomeration of self-styled gurus who waxed eloquent about the merits of positive thinking. They praised its powers, brandished it about as an effective method to kill stress and fatigue, and told stories of successful businessmen who used it to reach the pinnacle of their careers. That, by itself, was quite harmless.
But then they instructed the shell-shocked Mr Rai and his colleagues to expunge all negative thoughts and focus on positive aspects only. Mr Rai could feel that little thing stirring in his head, but a month of repeated drilling silenced it. Two months later four of the six projects he had passed turned out to be sinking ships. The funds could never be recovered and were written off as bad debts.
Do we really need positive thinking? Yes, we do to some extent. The question then arises - to what extent? How much is too much and how much is too little? The line between too much and too little is often hard to find and differs with circumstances.
But as a rule of thumb, when someone tries to sell you a product that he claims is going to change the world, or a colleague hands you an idea that the client will simply love, put on your glasses of scepticism and examine the offer before you go any further.
Carefully. It will make your vision a lot clearer and your foresight a lot sharper.
ARJUN SENGUPTA
arjuns.hyd@cnkonline.com
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