Genetically pessimistic?

The other day I was channel surfing when I came across a show with an intriguing title: "Michael J. Fox's Adventures of an Incurable Optimist." The title alone struck me as being a bit off since Fox has suffered with Parkinson's Disease since he was only 27, and I couldn't imagine anyone in his shoes being optimistic about life. But since I have always loved his work, I watched the show. In the beginning, he talked about being optimistic v. pessimistic in life, which made me immediately flash to my own life since I have always been labeled as a pessimist--even since I was a toddler. Throughout the show Fox taunted us with the fact that he was going to explore one of the new theories about what makes a person pessimistic or optimistic, but I just knew he was going to say that it's life experiences that make you this way, so I took a little stroll down memory lane in my mind as he talked with Lance Armstrong.

My mental walk went back to a slip of paper I once found in my mom's stuff. She had written down that when I was about 3, I told my brother who was 8 that "you'd be better off not getting out of bed sometimes." Now, I was only 3, so I must have heard an adult say this at some point because how could a 3 year old be this pessimistic? From 3 I jumped to 6 and found evidence that it is life experience that makes us pessimistic. I vividly remembered the hurt I felt when my best school friend "Amy" borrowed my box of 64 Crayola Crayons (w/ the sharpener!!) near the end of the school year and left them out in the sun so they all melted: my super duper box was one big blob. I cried. Then I flashed from 6 to 10 and remembered one of the most devastating events of my life. Our fifth grade class was writing books to submit to the Young Author conference where you got to meet the authors we were reading and see a tarantula (a very marketable event to get 5th graders inspired). I had been entering since 2nd grade and had once gotten an "Honorable Mention" in 4th grade for my book "The Strongest Ant," so I readily embraced trying again. For the fifth grade project I wrote "Freddy the Frog," a great tale about life in the swamp with the title character. My unbiased opinion was that it was brilliant and would win the trip to the conference, and I was right. The only problem was that I didn't get the trip. My arch rival at the time, Jeanine, stole the book from my desk and rewrote it in her printing, and upon submission, she won the trip. She was our school's "Young Author" that year. As you can tell, I'm still crushed: I loved that book and never ever liked Jeanine.

But as Lance Armstrong's story continued, my mind kept accumulating stories from my past that clearly made me the pessimist I am today. From the age of 4 I had two friends, and we were all inseparable...until 6th grade when they both "dumped" me because they wanted to be popular in middle school and said that they couldn't when they were seen with me. The one friend lived immediately across the street, but he wouldn't even walk to the bus stop with me: he walked on the other side of the road and would not talk with me or make eye contact. That same year, in a desperate attempt to make friends, my mom let me have a party for all of the girls in my 6th grade class: they were all invited and no one came. It was just my mom and I and loads of food. Sadly, I remembered event after event like this from 6th grade through to today as Lance Armstrong spoke about his being raised by a teenage mother and his struggles with cancer. I tried to focus on the show in order to avoid more trips down memory lane, but at one point my mind wandered to grad school and a guy I was dating. We got along really well, and he had the most gorgeous green eyes I had ever seen. I knew he could be the one as he sent me postcard after postcard from the different countries of Europe he toured for 6 weeks that summer. He promised to call as soon as he was home on July 31st, but it was the second week of August before he finally returned my calls (that was before email and Facebook). When we finally got together, and he didn't have the souvenir he had said he "picked out just for me" from Vienna, his words kicked me in the stomach: "I've decided to date Gina instead of you." "Who's Gina?" "Oh, did I forget to tell you? I had a blind date with her in April. We had just started dating, so I didn't really mention it. But she's a family friend, and she lives closer, and she picked me up at the airport, and her family has been 'established' in my town for a long time, and her dad's a lawyer..." He said more, but I don't really remember the rest. That was it for me: my being a pessimist was to be expected since life had pooed on my head far too many times to even remember.

Fox's voice again broke me out of my saddened stupor as I continued to watch the show. I learned about a "happy" country called Bhutan, heard about how the Chicago Cubs' 100 year losing streak doesn't upset the fans, and then came what I was waiting for: the segment that was about to prove me right...that life dumping on you makes you pessimistic. Fox introduced a British researcher who was exploring what causes us to be optimistic or pessimistic. She sat Fox down at a computer and had him select between two pictures that flashed on the screen. I picked out the images, too. I saw a dagger, a tombstone, and a lightening bolt. When the researcher discussed the results, I was stunned. Basically, if you chose the "positive" pictures--the child, the flowers, and the sunny day--you are pre-wired to be an optimist; if you chose my pictures, you were pre-wired to be a pessimist. Apparently, this researcher was finding that we are genetically pre-disposed to be optimistic or pessimistic. Impossible, I thought. But then she showed DNA results and other facts, and lo and behold, it made sense!

After the show, I sat back and felt somewhat relieved: it wasn't my fault that I was pessimistic...it was my neurological make up. But I couldn't get all of those bad events from my life out of my mind: they still must have had some effect on my pessimism. Then I remembered what the researcher said to Fox--that this predisposition makes a person perceive an event as either positive or negative based on the pre-disposition. If that's true, then when my crayons melted and I saw a blob, someone else would have been happy to get a whole new box of un-used crayons. To them, Jeanine's stealing my book would be a sign of how not to behave in life. Being dumped by two friends in 6th grade would be an opportunity to find better friends to a pre-wired optimist. No one coming to a party would be proof to an optimist that they weren't friends you wanted in the first place. Losing John to Gina in grad school would have been a boon to a pre-wired optimist: "at least I learned his true colors early!" I saw it, but I knew I could never think this way: I'm just pre-wired to be Eeyore.

But with my new found knowledge, I began to see why "perky" people who do see the glass as half full always wore on my nerves: I was not genetically pre-disposed to embrace their joy. So, when I think back to watching a TV show titled "Trapper John, M.D.," I understand why the "have a nice day!" candystriper drove me crazy; why one of my middle school friends who loved hearts, "friendship" sayings, and rainbows sometimes made me want to gauge my eyes out; why, to this day, I easily doubt friends; and why I immediately expect the phrase "I wanted to talk to you about something" certainly means trouble for me.

I just can't help it: I'm genetically wired to doubt the world and its intentions. And I know it must be fact because Michael J. Fox told me so...and anyone who can travel through time with a DeLorean must know more about science than an English professor.