The Value of Pessimism

I'm an optimist by nature. In the words of Miles, I like to like things. You're unlikely to see me being negative about things very often on this blog simply because I'd much rather spend my time finding things to be positive about. This isn't to say that I love everything uncritically, I just tend to keep criticism to myself.

With notable exceptions

Sometimes though, you have to be the pessimist. I'm running into this at my day job currently; a project is having some rough patches and I'm finding myself needing to be a critical voice in the face of an optimism that I fear might have us go live with something that doesn't do the job. It may be my fears are unfounded (I certainly hope so), but you have to take the worst case into account along with the best.

I don't enjoy being a downer, but sometimes everyone else is chasing rainbows and I'm the only one left to say 'but what if?' What's the backup plan? How do we recover if this fails? It's something I've had to learn myself over the years after having to scramble when something blew up in my face. Maybe I'm developing wisdom as I age.

Pfft, yeah right.