Pessimism as a strategy for reducing the negative psychological impact
August 20th, 2004
It seems like I’ve been writing posts whilst delayed in transit rather
a lot recently. Tonight Lara and I are heading north, or rather not heading
north on the Hull Trains 1933 to Selby, where tomorrow we’re going to
celebrate with my Dad on his 60th birthday.
Right now, however, we’re stuck somewhere south of Grantham having just
joined a queue of 15 trains waiting to negotiate a set of damaged signals.
This time we’re told that the culprit is lightening. Unpredictable, yes,
but surely not so extraordinary and un-anticipatable that a strike should
cause this kind of disruption.
Now I’m not naturally inclined to vexation, and (middle class warning)
the tasty lasagne and shiraz packed dinner which we have just enjoyed
heading north out of London has acted as a further suppressant. But even
so, I’m starting to feel pretty pissed off now. Last time I was stuck
on this journey the train was in a queue of 6 and was delayed by two
hours. My worst case scenario tonight is worryingly worse.
You might think that this sounds unduly negative, but I reckon that
extreme pessimism in these situations can be quite a successful strategy.
Either your predictions can be vindicated, which yields a certain grim
told-you-so satisfaction, or they turn out to be wild over-estimates,
and you’re pleasantly surprised when you arrive earlier than expected.
Update – and we eventually made home via a laid-on cab from Doncaster
station at about 12:45am – roughly 3 hours late. And my theory is vindicated
by the fact that I felt okay about this as ‘it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve
been’. Pessimism rules, although I now choose to be optimistic about
the claim for compensation that will very shortly be winging it’s way
to Hull trains.
Otherwise I’m happy to report that the weekend was very enjoyable. Many
thanks to all those friends and relations who helped to make the day
successful, and especially to Dad for taking the ribbing I gave him in
my ‘few words’ to the guests in such good nature.
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