FIRE = Pessimism?

[tangomonster]

I recently read a book review that talked about the main character being depressed and pessimistic---but then the reviewer added that this did pay off for him since it led to his saving and investing his money. And in another book I read, the narrator compared his parents, noting his father was an optimist who never worried about "a rainy day" while his mother never questioned if it would rain, "just how hard a rain it would be" and whether it would require an ark! If it wasn't for the mother, the family would have been financially ruined since the father spent money readily and made some bad decisions, like to buy a failing business.

So I got to wondering whether a little pessimism can be a good thing and whether it is associated with people who FIRE or want to FIRE. A lot of people on this board don't seem to be pessimists, but it almost does seem that if you don't worry about your future and if you are convinced that everything will be okay you may not be in a savings mode.

 

[Maurice]

In my experience pessimists are savers but savers aren't necessarily pessimists. Of course that's just anecdotal.

I imagine if one were to gather the data they would find a correlation.

 

[Zathras]

IMO the best savers would be realists. Mild optimists or mild pessimists would be more likely to save than the extremes on either side (again, imo).

 

[calmloki]

So what's hoping for the best and preparing for the worst?

 

[W2R]

Life has sucker-punched me several times, financially speaking. (Get out the tiny violins, my life is such a SAD story! ) I never expected these bad things to happen, so I guess that I have been a little overly optimistic and overly trusting.

Given what I have experienced in the past, I don't think that even now I am pessimistic. However I am VERY cautious by now! I have a lot of back-up plans built into my ER planning and I trust my financies to nobody but myself. To me, that's only logical. Especially during the crucial first ten years, I am expecting the market to tank, social security to crumble, and inflation to skyrocket. I suppose I don't REALLY expect all of this to happen, but I am planning as though it will. It would be unrealistic to expect lovely, uneventful economic times to continue indefinitely, IMO.

I am determined not to have to work for anybody ever again in my life after ER. I am very serious about that.

 

[Texas Proud]

IMO the best savers would be realists. Mild optimists or mild pessimists would be more likely to save than the extremes on either side (again, imo).

I agree that a normal saver is a realist.. but the pessimist might be a good saver also... I am the realist...

Also, I would think that the person who is not trying to impress people with what they have are also savers and to me this has nothing to do with optimist or pessimist..

I save a lot now because I now make a lot... I used to save a little because my chosen lifestyle used up a lot of my income... but I have kept that lifestyle with a rising income...

 

[tightasadrum]

Interesting question. I have always viewed the glass half full. I'm not a grinning optimist thinking everything is going to be just fine, fine, fine. However, I am cautiously optimistic, willing to believe things will work out, but hedging my bets in case it doesn't. I'm so middle of the road that all my personality profile thingys look like squares. Whoops, do you think...

Maybe I'm neither one.

 

[TromboneAl]

"Why save? I'm probably going to die soon."

 

[Moemg]

I'm a slight pessimist and a real planner .Life has taught me there is no way you can plan for all the possibilities life will toss your way so if crap happens I'll adjust spending accordingly.

 

[bbbamI]

"Why save? I'm probably going to die soon."

Yeah and 2012 is just around the corner.

 

[REWahoo]

Don't think being a pessimist and saving/investing necessarily go hand in hand. I did OK in those two areas and consider myself to be more of a realistic optimist than a pessimist.

However, there is absolutely no doubt the world is going to hell in a handbasket...

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

unless you were employed as a troubleshooter, i wonder if too much pessimism wouldn't prevent acquiring the skill set to succeed in most careers to the point that you might ever fire or if you did, maybe you wouldn't enjoy it too much, being able to continue finding fault with any given aspect.

i think a healthy dose of pessimism and optimism are both effective depending on a situation. i guess that would be called realism? mom was the eternal optimist and the ol'man tried to live my mother's optimism but really he was either a pessimist or a realist. between the two of them they never lived in debt and worked a very successful small business together. the only reason they never retired was because mom was a workaholic.

me? i'm a lazy optimist-in-the-long-run.

 

[Nords]

"Why save? I'm probably going to die soon."

The military version is "Why save? I could be killed tomorrow!"
It's used almost as frequently as "Hey, honey, this is my last night here, I'm shipping out tomorrow. What's your name?"

 

[Gumby]

You bothered to learn her name?

 

[donheff]

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better. This is the best of all possible worlds. I am going to use a 10% SWR, I am sure it will work.

 

[yakers]

I am going to use a 10% SWR

A realist!

 

[flipstress]

So I got to wondering whether a little pessimism can be a good thing and whether it is associated with people who FIRE or want to FIRE. A lot of people on this board don't seem to be pessimists, but it almost does seem that if you don't worry about your future and if you are convinced that everything will be okay you may not be in a savings mode.

Maybe a little pessimism causes one to save but to echo lg4nb, if one is too pessimistic, one might never stop working because one would want to keep preparing for the worst outcome. The other possible reaction of a pessimist was the one that TromboneAl raised--"What's the use (of saving or doing anything) when we're all gonna die anyway?"

I was raised in a culture deemed fatalistic by sociologists or anthropologists or whatever scientists study such things. There's a phrase called "Bahala na" which loosely translates to "Come what may", "Whatever happens", or "Leave it to God." So retirement was not something average people planned for, much less early retirement. People were too busy with the daily business of just surviving that I think few could take a step back and plan and save. Most times, there's most likely nothing to save.

Anyway, here in the US, I feel lucky to have had an awakening to the values of prudence and realism--that there will be an "old me" for whom I have to save. Maybe everything will all fall apart--global warming, nuclear war, water and other resource scarcity, epidemics, etc. will wipe us all out--but I have very little control over those. (Maybe I am being fatalistic about these problems. All I try to do is not to waste and pollute but maybe that's not enough.) So I just chug along saving and trying to enjoy what I can today.

 

[ziggy29]

A mild pessimist is more likely to be a saver. A strong pessimist is more likely to accumulate gold, guns and ammo.

 

[kaudrey]

tightasadrum said: "However, I am cautiously optimistic, willing to believe things will work out, but hedging my bets in case it doesn't."

This is me, too.

I save a lot because I want to FIRE, and I want to FIRE so I can enjoy 30 or 40 years of not w*rking, not because I think I'm going to die young or anything! It helps to have longevity and good health in the family...knock on wood!

 

[youbet]

Well.......I'm an optimistic pessimist tuned into reality.......

I am pessimistic that any two people posting on this thread have that same perception of optimism, pessimism and realism! And I'm optimistic that that's how it really is!

 

[Caoineag]

Well, my husband and I joke that we are catastrophe planners at heart. We try to prepare for everything to go wrong and then enjoy those moments when it doesn't. Honestly, I was preparing for one of us to be disabled or dead so that is why I want us living on one income. In my defense, my father has had two back surgeries and my mother died when I was 16 so I see living on one income a realistic reaction to having to live on only one income when the bills were built for two incomes.

I tell people I am optimist for those things that don't affect me if I am wrong, a pessimist for those things that could destroy me if I am not prepared and a realist when I am honest.

 

[tangomonster]

I tell people I am optimist for those things that don't affect me if I am wrong, a pessimist for those things that could destroy me if I am not prepared and a realist when I am honest.

I love that, Caoineag!

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

There's a phrase called "Bahala na" which loosely translates to "Come what may".

a song i really like is from the film moulin rouge! titled "come what may" and so the optimist in me thought upon reading your post that should i ever get a boat what a great name "bahala na" would be.

but then the pessimist in me researched and found bahala na to be the name of a drug running filipino gang. hmmm. perhaps a name best not painted astern.

 

[FIREd]

I am a mild pessimist. I don't believe that the world is coming to an end, but I do believe that we should save as much as possible today because I don't think that things will be as good in the future as they are now (higher taxes, lower incomes, lower benefits...). Perhaps it comes from hearing my grand mother talk about the war, food rationing and the great depression and how all these things can happen so quickly and so unexpectedly. I don't know...

What I know is that when I arrived in the US in 1997, I thought Americans were a very optimistic bunch. Overly optimistic in fact... It used to frustrate me when people kept saying things like "everything will work out in the end...". I just wanted to say "how do you know?", "how can you be so sure?". But sure they were and I had come to love that eternal optimism. I say "had" because right now I can't find that optimism anymore in America. I feel like everywhere you turn, It's all doom and gloom. Hopefully it will change...

 

[megacorp-firee]

I would describe myself as a realist. I pride myself in having a 1/2 full attititude, but having grown up in a large urban metropolis, I am also as street smart as the next guy. One of the things I have come to realize over the years (being an old phart), is that if I have low expectations of people, situations, ...etc., I am never disappointed or surprised (except for being pleasantly surprised when they/it exceeds my expectation).
My goal now (that I have my financial house in order) is to live life with as little stress as possible. The problem with actually achieving that is that small things that 'go south on me' start to seem like larger stressers than they should be (upon retrospection).

I [-]am one of those delusional ones [/-]really think that medical technology for us 50 somethings will get to the point where we actually will have the expectations to live to be 100 (with replacement parts of course). I am looking forward to another 45 years or so, if I have the means (to fund the parts, ... which by the way is included in my spread sheets), of a good quality life. If I had known I'd be in this good (financial ) shape when I was younger, I woulda taken better care of myself. My focus is to stay in as good a shape (within reason) as I can, so I can go to Target and get those new knee joints. How's that for optimistic?