Optimism, Spite and Cynicism

Wikipedia is an interesting place to look up philosophy!
How many of us are cynics in some area or the other in life? Think relationships, professional life, personal life, academics, ethics etc etc...
An interesting theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism
- Life's vagaries ?-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness (see the interesting last paragraph on the link to optimism - learned_optimism they call it)
- Leading to ?-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism
Sometimes evaluating why we react in a certain way in certain spheres of life - does give us an insight into how much of it is from habit (learned helplessness/optimism?).
Surprisingly personal life and personal philosophies link closely with professional life and professional philosophies; especially in demanding work environments.

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Quote:
**self-esteem, with psychological well-being and with personal health. Martin Seligman, in researching this area, criticises academics for focusing too much on causes for pessimism and not enough on optimism. He points out that in the last three decades of the 20th century journals published 46,000 psychological papers on depression and only 400 on joy.
Ideologically convinced optimists may defend failures in their hoped-for outcomes by discussing "misplaced optimism" rather than abandoning optimism altogether.
A number of scholars have suggested that, although optimism and pessimism might seem like opposites, in psychological terms they do not function in this way. Having more of one does not mean you have less of the other. The factors that reduce one do not necessarily increase the other. On many occasions in life we need both in equal supply. Antonio Gramsci famously called for "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will": the one the spur to action, the other the resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in the face of adversity.
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On a related note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

-Rishi
Note: The views included in this article are views of the author only, and do not convey any corporate views. The author does not suggest a path, he merely wishes to provoke thoughts.