Friday shares some of her ideas from her psychology class.
3 comments:
Wednesday
said...
=) I am definitely an optimist, even though I'm more serious than you. I don't think that recognizing sin is really a pessimistic thing. Can't you view sin and brokenness as transitory, and "recover from troubles" easily, because of God's grace? (I still need to watch last week's grace video though) But in the sense of optimism/pessimism being about how much you take credit for good or bad things... I don't know if optimism is right. It's probably also very possible to take too much credit for good things.
I always thought of myself as more of an optimist, but by the definition you gave, I would be a solid pessimist. It seems to me that both optimists and pessimists lie to themselves. Does the question simply boil down to which sort of lie you want to believe? Or is there some way of more objectively viewing the way things are, without it being inherently optimistic or pessimistic?
I've been thinking about pessimism a whole lot this weekend and I think I'd agree with you that both groups lie to themselves. I there *should* be a way not to lie to oneself... but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I've defined optimism and pessimism too narrowly?
Perhaps, outside of psych class, a person doesn't have to be either one or the other? Maybe there is a middle ground? I like the idea of a more objective way of viewing things, but that's about all I have so far.
I don't want to just say "strive for balance!" but maybe that's part of it...
A Year Of Questions is a project begun on March 22, 2010, by seven teens who want to be better at asking questions and articulating answers. This blog exists to make it easier to discuss these questions (because a 500 character limit on YouTube comments is rather limiting). Enjoy!
3 comments:
=) I am definitely an optimist, even though I'm more serious than you. I don't think that recognizing sin is really a pessimistic thing. Can't you view sin and brokenness as transitory, and "recover from troubles" easily, because of God's grace? (I still need to watch last week's grace video though) But in the sense of optimism/pessimism being about how much you take credit for good or bad things... I don't know if optimism is right. It's probably also very possible to take too much credit for good things.
I always thought of myself as more of an optimist, but by the definition you gave, I would be a solid pessimist. It seems to me that both optimists and pessimists lie to themselves. Does the question simply boil down to which sort of lie you want to believe? Or is there some way of more objectively viewing the way things are, without it being inherently optimistic or pessimistic?
I've been thinking about pessimism a whole lot this weekend and I think I'd agree with you that both groups lie to themselves. I there *should* be a way not to lie to oneself... but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I've defined optimism and pessimism too narrowly?
Perhaps, outside of psych class, a person doesn't have to be either one or the other? Maybe there is a middle ground? I like the idea of a more objective way of viewing things, but that's about all I have so far.
I don't want to just say "strive for balance!" but maybe that's part of it...
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