Being an optimist as well as being a pessimist are two different ways to relate to a given situation. One may assume them to be opposites of a polarity, but they are not. They are neutral and simply a way to be.

However, they do become opposites when one of both is perceived as the right way to be. Both having lost their neutrality, the judgment that one is good and the other is bad transforms one side of the spectrum as the way to be and the other as what to avoid.