I have several friends who are in the beginning of
relationships. Other people with normal social skills smile and hug them and
ask interested questions. People like me go: really? Are you sure this isn’t
just a rebound thing?… It’s a natural reaction for me, just like applying
source criticism to facebook links or that ridiculous yelp every time I slip in
public. Now, my question here is this: does this kind of negativity make me a
worse rugby player?
Let me explain. Cynical pessimists like me play it safe, we
don’t really trust anyone else to have our backs and we hate to make mistakes.
The thought of going for an interception immediately gets flagged down with a
huge red banner reading 10% chance of succeeding, 90% risk of leaving a big
hole in the defence that your teammate can’t cover, the other team runs through
and scores, you lose the game, it’s all your fault and Uppsala will never win
anything ever if you keep doing stupid things like that! (Mental flags can be
pretty big…)
Truth is maybe not so grim. The odds are not quite so bad
and the consequences not as sinister. A blue-eyed optimist would maybe have a
green flag saying: good chance of fame and glory, do it do it do it! ? And once
in a while they would actually pull it off and potentially score a surprise
try, while the cynical pessimist stay behind to tackle and tackle and tackle.
So it seems the distance between the optimist and the successful opportunist is
a lot closer than the distance from the pessimist to said opportunist.
Those of us who are born with a touch of mistrust and detail
analysis (i.e. annoying whiners or made for science careers), how do we get
there? Do we need happy pills to see the point of trying anything smaller than a
50-50 chance? And is this wet blanket mentality stopping us from being our best?
