The scale between optimism and pessimism is an interesting one. In finding one’s own place on that and measuring your outlook on a particular instance, the first step is determining the likelihood of that event occurring. For many people, and many instances, that is the only step.
For others, we must also consider how much that event impacts us, either intentionally or done more through the subconscious.
As an an example, the super-volcano in Yellowstone has a chance of going off sometime over the next so many thousand or million years. As far as we know, it could be within four years or it could be after humans move to another galaxy through a conveniently located wormhole. While probability weighs heavy when thinking about the subject, imagining how I’d get by with the sun blocked out isn’t very fun. So, with those combined, I know I’ll be alright.
And, under the right circumstances, that’s what we do in baseball.
Readers of this blog, or any Mariners blog, obviously carry a heightened level of investment in the team. What they do on a day-to-day basis impacts us. If you’re reading this blog now, you’re checking what’s going on while they play practice games with half their players. The Mariners, a team that’s lost 101 games in two of their past three seasons.
We all obviously would like for them to do well. And in doing so, we look for reasons for that to occur, almost exclusively. Again, the Mariners. Want to see what everyone else thinks of the M’s, who we’re being grouped with? Have a look here.
But we have to have reasons for why they’ll do well. I went to a lot of games last year and plan on attending several this season. If they’re all going to be like last year’s, I’m going to be quite bummed out.
So we go online and look for reasons to be optimistic. Sometimes though, we’re reminded that our optimism is of the “How does this affect me?” variety, and not one based in probability. We’re reminded of things like Erik Bedard being made of glass and Michael Pineda being an infant in the baseball world.
The articles reminding us of those things aren’t necessarily bad. They’re necessary. Being an informed baseball fan is obviously better than being an uninformed one.
That said, ignorance does not have to preclude being optimistic or enthusiastic. You can hope or even think the Mariners will do well without being an idiot. I didn’t intend to be another asshole with a “hope springs eternal” story but I don’t think people can be told enough to embrace the things they have.
When I’m not relentlessly praying the Mariners will return to their early-oughts glory, I am an obnoxious and overbearing Green Bay Packers fan. When they were 3-3 this season, I remained more than hopeful, I maintained that no team could outplay them when they played to the level they were capable of. And you know what? That made it feel even better when they won the Super Bowl.
It felt great because those losses were as much a part of the Super Bowl victory as the game in Dallas. So was the first time Aaron Rodgers played in Dallas, in 2007 when he stepped in for Brett Favre in a strong losing effort. As was the NFC Championship game that year, when a Brett Favre pick in overtime crushed my entire world.
So what does this have to do with the Mariners? Simply, enjoy what we have now. We focus so much on what things mean and how they impact things going forward that we sometimes don’t enjoy what’s going on right now. There’s a reason people tell 20-year-olds to “make a mess of your life,” to take some chances and maybe even get crushed from time to time.
Throwing yourself entirely into something can be considered emotionally unwise. But not doing so puts a hard cap on the fulfillment garnered in a possible but unlikely competitive season. But where else in life is tempering expectations and keeping optimism low a good idea? When is that helpful?
So let’s have a bit of optimism that Milton Bradley is back, that Erik Bedard can contribute to a professional baseball team, that the young guys open the M’s window of competitiveness a year early.
More than anything, let’s just have fun.
Original Story:
http://www.proballnw.com/03-2011/opti...
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