An Optimistic Pessimist

People have often called me a pessimist...saying I see the worst side of everything. I prefer to think of myself as a realist. I'm the person with the rose-coloured glasses thinking life is cheery all the time with the sunflowers singing a Disney song. I'm also not the person who wears a bullet-proof vest because he's sure the mailman is going to shoot him when he says hello. A realist is more of an optimistic pessimist. When someone asks if the glass is half full or half empty, I ask whether you just poured something into it...or if you took a drink out of. If I just took a drink, then I would ask where is the waiter to fill up the glass. If it was just filled up, I ask where the waiter is that only filled up my glass halfway.

I wish I could see the best in people and actually believe it. However, in my few years in the news business I've learned that you actually can't trust people. If something seems too good to be true, it definitely is and odds are it is a public official who is trying to hide it from you or is making money off of it. I'm not saying everyone is a bad person, I think there are truly good people out there, but they are not a large part of the population. Good people tend to keep to themselves. They don't publish the fact that they aren't breaking the rules. They don't draw attention to themselves because they did the right thing. They just keep doing it...not for praise, but for themselves. To those people I say "Thanks." Thanks for keeping humanity going.

The obvious next question -- am I a good person? I'd like to think so, but I know that I've screwed up a lot in life. I will sometimes publish the great things I've done. So, by my definition, that takes away some of the good guy in me. However, my job does invite the absoute verbal abuse and it involves long hours with a lot of stress, so the fact that I seek out a little praise doesn't make me a bad person.

So I'm back to where I started. I'm a realist. Not perfect...not bad. Just me.