Disappointment

Being a fairly large fan of BYU sports I was quite thoroughly excited for the big sweet 16 game tonight, the first one BYU has been in in the past 30 years.  Like any good sporting event the entire game was a gigantic roller coaster ride of emotions.  The sadness of being down 10 early, and the excitement of rallies making up the large deficit.  All of it was simply glorious with the high point probably being when regulation ended in a 68-68.  Unfortunately after this point it was all downhill as the overtime was not BYU's time of glory.  Rather we started to show fatigue and were pretty much dominated on both sides of the court.  Well this got me thinking about a philosophy about pessimism that I had recently heard.  Basically if your optimistic you'll either feel validated or disappointed, if your pessimistic then you'll either be validated or pleasantly surprised.  Logically then, it makes more sense to be pessimistic than optimistic.  While this is a hard argument to dispute, something in me just feels as though that can't really be the best way to go.  Had I been pessimistic the whole game I would have missed out on the wonderful roller coaster ride during the game, and lets be honest, since we lost the game the roller coaster of emotion was definitely the best part of the whole thing.  I think it has to do with the necessity of opposition in all things.  If we are pessimistic and the worst we feel is validated, then we never really have anything to make the good times seem that much better.  The opposition of being disappointed is what makes the highs so very high.  I don't know about other people, but I do know that when I'm on cloud nine I want to be as high up there as I can possibly be.  And the only way I see to be able to do that is by being optimistic and putting myself out there time and time again. Sure the lows will hurt, but the highs will make it worth it every time!