Positive, Negative... or Just Realistic?

My husband thinks I can be negative sometimes.

Not all the time, I hasten to add, but often enough for the comment to pop up every now and again. If he sees the proverbial glass as half full, he sometimes thinks I'm concentrating on the empty half. I, on the other hand, would probably point out that we'd better put the glass somewhere safe before someone knocks it over!

Mug half empty

The funny thing is, I don't actually see myself as a negative person at all. I don't wake up expecting everything to go wrong or assuming that every new challenge is destined to fail—quite the opposite. I simply like to look at things as they are, consider what might happen, and think about how I'd deal with it if it did. To me, that's realism.

Yet I've often wondered whether optimistic people hear realism as negativity?

If someone naturally expects the best, perhaps any mention of potential problems sounds like expecting the worst. Maybe there isn't much room in between.

Perhaps, without even meaning to, we sometimes hear the world in black and white when someone else is happily living in shades of grey.

It made me wonder whether this is something we're born with or whether life quietly teaches us to see the world in different ways.

Psychologists have spent decades asking that very question, and, rather frustratingly, the answer seems to be "a bit of both." Research suggests that our natural temperament is influenced partly by genetics, but our experiences shape us just as much. Someone who has grown up surrounded by encouragement may naturally expect things to work out. Someone who has had a few unexpected knocks might become a little more cautious. Neither outlook is necessarily right or wrong; they're simply different ways of approaching uncertainty.

Our work probably shapes us too. Imagine an airline pilot who never considers what might go wrong, or an engineer who assumes every bridge will stand simply because they're feeling positive that morning. We don't call those people pessimists; we call them professionals. Thinking ahead, spotting potential problems and planning for them isn't negativity. It's part of doing a good job.

Perhaps artists are rather similar.

Painting has taught me that realism isn't gloomy—it's essential.

If I'm working on a pet portrait and convince myself that an animal's eye is in exactly the right place when it clearly isn't, no amount of positive thinking is going to improve the painting.

Lioness eye and pencils

I have to see what's actually there before I can make it better. In many ways, learning to paint and draw, has probably made me more of a realist than ever, because art doesn't reward wishful thinking. It rewards careful observation.

The more I paint and draw, the more I realise that improvement begins with honesty. Not harsh self-criticism, but honest observation. There's a huge difference between looking at a painting and saying, "That's awful, I'll never get this right," and saying, "The lighting isn't working yet. I'll need to learn how to paint light better."

Those two thoughts might sound similar at first, but they're worlds apart.

That difference is something I've thought about a lot because it sums up how I approach almost everything.

I never think, "I can't do that."

I think, "I'm going to have to learn how to do that."

To me, that's one of the most hopeful sentences you can say.

It acknowledges that something is difficult without assuming it's impossible. It accepts that there is work to do but also quietly assumes that, given enough time and practice, you'll get there eventually.

Isn't that optimism of a different sort?

There's another fascinating idea in psychology called 'optimism bias'.

Most of us, to some extent, naturally believe that bad things are less likely to happen to us than to other people. It's probably one of the reasons people start businesses, climb mountains or decide to renovate old houses. If everyone spent their lives dwelling on every possible disaster, very little would ever get done.

On the other hand, optimism has its own blind spots. If we're convinced everything will work out, we can overlook genuine problems that need dealing with.

Realists sit somewhere in the middle.

Take going out for a walk. My husband might look out of the window and say, "It'll be fine." I'll probably notice the weather forecast says there's a chance of rain and pop an umbrella in my bag.

Now here's the amusing part. If it stays dry all day, he'll smile and tell me I worried unnecessarily. If it pours with rain halfway round the walk, I'll quietly produce the umbrella and wonder why I'm the one being called negative!

The umbrella wasn't an expectation that disaster was coming. It was simply preparation. Carrying it didn't stop me enjoying the walk. In fact, it probably helped me enjoy it more because I knew I was prepared if the weather changed.

That feels like realism to me.

Interestingly, psychologists have also studied something called defensive pessimism.

It sounds rather gloomy, but it isn't quite what it seems. Some people deliberately imagine what might go wrong because doing so helps them prepare.

practice

A musician imagines forgetting a piece of music and practises a little more. Someone giving a presentation imagines difficult questions and thinks through the answers beforehand.

From the outside, that can look like negativity.

In reality, it's often the reason they perform so well.

The more I read, the more I realised that very few people fit neatly into the boxes of "optimist" or "pessimist" anyway. Most of us are a mixture. We might be confident in one area of life and cautious in another. We might happily book an adventurous holiday while worrying endlessly about speaking in public.

Perhaps the real question isn't whether someone is positive or negative.

Perhaps it's whether the way they think helps them move forwards.

If believing everything will be perfect stops you noticing problems, that's not especially helpful. Equally, if expecting failure stops you trying altogether, that isn't helpful either.

But if looking realistically at a situation helps you prepare, learn, improve and keep moving, surely that's something worth valuing.

As artists, we're constantly balancing those ideas.

Every painting asks us to be optimistic enough to begin, realistic enough to recognise what isn't working, and determined enough to keep learning. If we simply admired everything we painted, we'd never improve. If we hated everything we painted, we'd probably give up.

Somewhere between those two lies growth.

Perhaps that's why I don't recognise myself when someone says I can be negative.

I don't look at a difficult drawing or painting and think, "I'll never manage that."

I look at it and think, "I'm just going to have to learn how to do it! May take a while.......but I'll get there!."

There is hope hidden inside that sentence.

It assumes that tomorrow I'll know a little more than I do today. It assumes that experience counts for something. It assumes that mistakes are teachers rather than verdicts.

And maybe that's what realism really is.

Not expecting life—or painting—to be easy, but believing that with patience, curiosity, plenty of practice and, if we're honest, rather more cups of tea than we'd planned, we'll get there in the end!

Dog portrait commission

Do you think you are what other people think you are? Or do we all see ourselves a little differently? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Lynda x