Optimism is a personality trait I never really developed. I don’t know if I was born with an inherent tendency for gloominess or whether some early childhood experience set me on the path to pessimism.
But by the time I was able to read Winnie-the-Pooh I was definitely a glass-half empty girl, convinced that the ever-ebullient Tigger would one day bounce himself right off the edge of a cliff.
I preferred to take my life lessons from Eeyore who famously grumbled: “I never get my hopes up, so I never get let down.”
