there are many reasons why I consider myself an optimist, but I never really thought much about it until Annie announced that she thinks I am a pessimist.

She talked to me about it and explained that she was basing that on the way I reacted to certain things, and specifically, my frequent announcements (only partly facetious) that I hate everyone and everything.

I disagree with her. I think being an optimist or a pessimist has very little to do with how well you react to certain situations or whether you hold the rest of mankind in contempt.

It has to do with the way you react to things as a whole. While bad things do happen to me, on the whole, I am confident that in the end, things will work out (if not for the best, then the way they needed to be).

When I watch the news, I see bad things happening, and think “that’s sad,” and I move on. I think about other things and I remain confident that things will work out.

Annie watches the news and comes away with her faith in mankind shaken. I’ll listen to her mutter for hours about the environment, or war, or just unfortunate things. She worries about them happening to her and she stresses about them happening to other people. Her faith in many things, both religious and secular is easily shaken.

To me, that’s pessimism. Because I don’t react that way. I don’t get bogged down in it, because while it’s true that bad things are happening, and could happen to you, you need to do what you can with what you’ve got, and do your best to improve your lot in life. And I remain ever hopeful that I can improve, and so can the world.

There are those (and while Annie has never said so, I think she might think of me this way) who view this as turning a blind eye to the world’s problems. I don’t have a good response to that. I just don’t feel that’s what I’m doing. I don’t think I can solve all the world’s problems, but I also don’t feel a huge pressure to do so.

So sure, I get mad at bad drivers, and I don’t like shallow inconsiderate people, but when it comes to the larger issues, I consider myself optimistic.