An optimist

Despite the conventional advice that it works to be an optimist, I don’t simply enjoy being optimistic, at least being solely so. It comforts me to ask the following questions myself when a trouble happens: What would be the worst scenario? ; What would be the effect of it?; How can I avoid it?

I sometimes feel even annoyed by a single-hearted person who is too complacent with his or her optimistic view of the world. Limiting imagination to a single perspective alone upsets me, even if it is someone else’s imagination.

George W. Bush might be a case in point. Here is his response to then-Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar one month before the Iraq War in 2003 (The New York Review of Books. November 8, 2007. p. 60).

Aznar: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

Bush: I am an optimist, because I believe that I’m right. I’m at peace with myself.

An interesting view. However, I’d like to be at peace with reality, not just with myself.