Page 168 - Psychology of Money - Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)

“For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is
COBACOBA
going to hell.”

—Historian Deirdre McCloskey

Optimism is the best bet for most people because the world tends to get
better for most people most of the time.

But pessimism holds a special place in our hearts. Pessimism isn’t just more
common than optimism. It also sounds smarter. It’s intellectually
captivating, and it’s paid more attention than optimism, which is often
viewed as being oblivious to risk.

Before we go further we should define what optimism is. Real optimists

don’t believe that everything will be great. That’s complacency. Optimism
is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor over time, even
when there will be setbacks along the way. The simple idea that most
people wake up in the morning trying to make things a little better and more
productive than wake up looking to cause trouble is the foundation of
optimism. It’s not complicated. It’s not guaranteed, either. It’s just the most
reasonable bet for most people, most of the time. The late statistician Hans
Rosling put it differently: “I am not an optimist. I am a very serious

possibilist.”

Now we can discuss optimism’s more compelling sibling: pessimism.

December 29th, 2008.

The worst year for the economy in modern history is about to close. Stock
markets around the world had collapsed. The global financial system was
on day-to-day life support. Unemployment was surging.