Can you be optimistic about not being pessimistic? Isn't that, like, a triple negative?. . To be honest, pessimism is a feeling. You feel hot, you feel hungry, you feel pessimistic. It isn't any more real than any other feeling that you have. It just takes a little discipline to not give into it. . . Many of us tend to latch onto the worst-case scenario in a given situation, but we rarely realize that it takes an extreme set of circumstances for the worst-case scenario to happen, so we get caught up in that scenario, and obsess about it. In most cases, we are best served by just letting the worst-case scenario go, as it will probably never happen.. . Of course, there's probably some wisdom behind the idea of planning for the worst - as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.