Junior English Speech Competition Winner, the Power of Pessimism - Year 10 Form 4

Is the glass half full or half empty? ...A common question, often, wrongly answered. People always insist on "looking on the bright side"... but the bright side being so far away from reality it's unreal!

We've all heard the clichés "Every Cloud has a silver a lining", "There is a light at the end of every tunnel" or "Look on the bright side. All these false statements are used by people that are trying to hide from reality. They dream up these phrases and use them as excuses. Excuses from the real world. Excuses from their true problems. Excuses that make them feel better. Excuses that give them false hope. All of which could be avoided by pessimistically realizing the cold, hard but honest reality.

Optimism is like nails down a chalkboard, unbearably annoying! Optimists constant smile and enthusiasm soon gets old. They see the humor in someone falling down the stairs and practically celebrate upon someone's death. They always expect things to be wonderful, and when failures hits they fall a lot further than the pessimist, whom doesn't even fall.

Because optimists see the good in everything, they dust past the harsh realties of life. They are unable to accept the negativity of say the dying in Africa or the murders committed daily worldwide. They just think everything will get better, when in reality everything will probably get worse. Its crazy to believe anyone could have a positive outlook on these clearly horrific cases. This proves the extent of how nonsensical optimists truly are.

Its often thought that pessimists are the ones that hate the world, but a lot of depressed people are seemingly optimistic, but they are only using optimism as a disguise. No one can see how he or she really feels and assume that they're okay, whilst really they're not; they are actually in unimaginable pain. But pessimism would allow them to show their true feelings, which make people aware and can only help them to get better.

Pessimists always expect the worst and assume that everything is going to be bad, and because it probably will be bad they avoid disappointment. However, on the off chance that it is good, they are appreciative. As

George Will said, "The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised". An optimist on the other hand would be so expectant upon how good something will be that it could never live up to those standards, and either way- good or bad they will be let down.

With pessimism comes never being satisfied, and always knowing that there's room for improvement. It means

that we feel the need to work harder, rather than a she'll be right optimist, who thinks by putting in a small amount of effort they're already the next Shakespeare.