Optimism v pessimism in 2017: the comedian and the psychologist debate

One day last year, Liam Williams locked himself out and tried to climb in through his bedroom window. “I’d done it before very skilfully when drunk,” he says, “but this time I was hungover, so I guess I had that reduced inhibition, but not that derring-do – you know, the reckless optimism of a drunkard.” It didn’t end well. “It was only the first storey but I didn’t have any shoes on and it was quite a high window. I fell and broke my heels. It really hurt.”

The comedian is telling this story to psychotherapist Philippa Perry and me as we meet in a London cafe to consider the merits of optimism and pessimism. Is pessimism necessarily bad for you? What health benefits come with being optimistic? Does being optimistic help you in relationships? Does being pessimistic make you pragmatic about a prospective lover’s shortcomings? If you’re as bleakly pessimistic as Eeyore, can you change? If you’re as misguidedly optimistic as Mr Micawber, can you get a firmer grip on reality? More troublingly, what looks like pessimism to one can seem like optimism to another. Consider Williams’s attempted break-in. Perry suggests that his climb was optimistic. Liam worries it was doomed by pessimism. “It comes under the heading of risk-taking,” says Perry. “Optimists are more likely to take risks – they think they can drive into that gap in traffic or climb through windows.” She pauses before adding: “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”

“I was a bit desperate,” says Williams, “so I made a ridiculous decision. As I was climbing, I lacked that crucial optimism that I was going to get in. I was physically impaired and I probably had a narrative in my head that this wasn’t going to go well, which I wouldn’t have had when I was drunk.”

“That,” says Perry, “is the self-fulfilling prophecy thing.” What does that mean? “If I go to a party expecting to have a good time, look people in the eye, I may well do. If I walk in hang-dog thinking nobody wants to speak to me, I probably won’t.” Viewed thus, Williams expected to fall. Perhaps he even wanted to.

Soon after the fall, a friend asked Williams how he’d been feeling at the time. “I said maybe a bit depressed. And she said: ‘Maybe you took a reckless decision because you were depressed.’” Williams compares this to the EU referendum: “Maybe it was like Brexit – ‘My life is so shit at the moment that I can take this grave, reckless decision and at least something will be different.’” The year 2016 was, he thinks, marked by such pessimism. “Those who voted for Brexit and Trump were so pessimistic about how things are going, they felt any change must be better.”

“Which,” adds Perry insightfully, “is quite optimistic.” Good point: to their opponents, such as Williams, Brexiteers and Trumptonians may have looked like pessimists who, in a fit of infantile petulance, were destroying their respective polities. 

Read more https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jan/02/optimism-v-pessimism-2017-comedian-liam-williams-psychologist-philippa-perry-debate

Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd