one of the interesting things about being generally optimistic is how naive it seems at first glance
like, even if a situation had an equal chance of turning out good or bad, it's generally seen as more realistic to assume the worst
that's not even taking into account how most people actually do legitimately try to improve things they interact with, because they actually do care about things in the same way you do!
it's easy to think of counterexamples, of course! but those situations aren't what happen most of the time! (that's why these situations are still jarring)
i can understand that being pessimistic means you can kinda just "hedge" all of your assumptions, since you'll be mentally ready for it when bad things do happen, and can be pleasantly surprised when they don't
but it also takes soooo much extra emotional energy to perpetually think that the worst case scenarios will happen
(it also saps you of the energy you'd have to make your own positive changes, since the point of trying seems far less rewarding than it actually would be)
