Mixed Blessings

In the long run we’re dead, all right, but the long run doesn’t kick in for a while. In the interim, a majority of Americans have a cheerful outlook on life. When an ORC International survey asked adults whether they’d describe themselves as optimists or pessimists, 78 percent put themselves in the upbeat category. Seventeen percent classified themselves as pessimists, and 5 percent were undecided. The pessimists tend to regard the optimists as fools. But anecdotal evidence suggests that each cohort tends to get the life outcome it expects.