An optimist and a pessimist are shipwrecked, and wash up together on a desert island. The optimist decides that, though there's no food or fresh water where they are, it's worth exploring the other side of the island to see whether there's anything edible or potable there.
"Come on!" he says. "Where there's life, there's hope!"
"No there isn't," says the pessimist. "This is a desert island. There's nothing here. We might as well just lie down and die."
"Well, come on, it's worth a try, isn't it?"
"No it isn't. We're going to die."
So the optimist, not a mite discouraged, sets off by himself for the other side of the island, where he is eaten by a crocodile. And the pessimist starves to death.
Psychologists have conducted a study of more than 100 people and claim to have identified an optimism gene."We've shown for the first time that a genetic variation is linked with a tendency to look on the bright side of life," says Elaine Fox of the University of Essex. "This is a key mechanism underlying resilience to general life stress."
The study concludes that, "The current results indicate that a genetically driven tendency to look on the bright side of life is a core cognitive mechanism underlying resilience to general life stress."
Video of the Day!...Via Monty Python
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