When will we stop focusing on how people react to situations? With social media, I see so many people post about how they're deleting friends because "they're too negative." What does that actually mean, anyway? How is it actually doing you harm? I've had different people describe me as a pessimist and as the most optimistic person they've ever met! That even raises another question: is one person's perspective only validated by the perspective of another person? What I mean is, does my 'title' as a pessimist or an optimist only depend on the person judging me with those categories? Does it even matter what I consider myself?
What I do consider myself is none of the above. I've used the term 'realist' before but that sounds pretentious. I simply react to each situation with the appropriate empathy. And by appropriate I mean, fitting. Not fake. I'm not going to pretend everything will be hunky-dory in a dire situation; that solves nothing. True, uttering a commiserating curse word solves nothing either, but then that's my point. Being positive is just as useless as being negative. What I do beyond the reaction phase is attempt to draw off the reality of a bad situation and work to come up with solutions. Pent up negative emotions are pretty bad; I'd much prefer to be around people who don't pretend every cloud has a silver lining because they know how to release pressure in the moment before it reaches critical mass. Absolutely every 'optimist' I've ever known ultimately blows up and makes a huge ass of themselves. Anecdotal, yes, but it makes enough sense to me to know I don't want to be a fake person.
I'm not implying that all optimists are fake, nor that reacting positively is fake. Reacting positively to something clearly negative is either fake, or just plain ignorant. Personally, I'm more annoyed by people that seem to refuse to acknowledge how difficult a time I'm having by insisting that 'things will be alright,' as if that somehow fixes the problem.
So yes, I can see how my personal philosophy toward religion reflects on this. In my book I discuss perseverance; the willingness to face adversity and not back down. The religious person/optimist will just invoke the universe, karma, or God to make everything alright. This initial step makes it hard for that person to then take the next crucial step of actually setting out to solve the problem. The 'pessimist' acknowledges the hardship and then sets forth to fix it, albeit I don't like using the word 'pessimist' as a descriptor because it has a negative connotation to it.
The cold hard reality is that reality is cold and hard. Bad things happen and saying everything will work out isn't a fix. It even borders on exuding a kind of dismissal of the true gravity of a situation. In other words, it can be just as 'rude' as some pessimistic reactions.
The bottom line is this: you are responsible for how you feel. If someone's pessimism makes you feel bad, it's because you let it. Don't punish others for living their lives the way they choose. Don't expect others to change the way they interact with you. Their attitudes have no effect on you unless you choose to allow it. I've had a lot of people remove me from their lives for difference of opinion, but I still have a lot of people in my life that have vastly different world views. Those are the people that are mature enough to know the difference between controlling your own life, and trying to control your surroundings.
When it was implied that I'm an uncaring individual because of my atheism, it actually made me cry - at first. Then I realized that I know I care and that's all that matters. The way I choose to show support for a bad situation is tailor-fit to who I am, and upon reflection it isn't malevolent or harmful... unless the person perceiving it wants it to be... and that's out of my hands. My sadness only came because I allowed myself to care what someone else thought of me; what someone else thought about the way I react to bad situations. I'm not above change, but if something isn't actually broken, it doesn't need fixing. We can't all be the same person.
