Optimism vs Pessimism

I had an hour ago an interesting discussion with a Hungarian friend of mine, while eating in an underground Korean Videoclub-SuperMarket-Restaurant.

Bence: I am optimist.
Me: I used also to be . But somehow the last two years I think I am flirting with pessimism
Bence: I think it's a matter of rationalism. Using logic you can prove that things are not that bad.
Me: I think you are right.

Now I am back in my office, and I have an objection to this dialog. Maybe it's not a matter of rationalism, it's a matter of choice, and then of course exercise and stick on your choice. Why? I will explain with an example, which reminds me of a similar example given to an introductory course of the Silva method I attended 8 years ago.

Today I had a call from my mother, complaining that my brother was suffering in the army, because he had to stay awake 4.00 am to 6.00 am to assure that the dorms were secure from the enemy (...) (In greek: skopia) And she thought that he might catch a cold and suffer more. This is quite rational, though pessimistic. On the other hand she could have thought that by this way he was trained to be tough and to survive in his life under any circumstances. Both these thoughts are rational, but the first made her sad, while the second could have make her happy. This is in accordance actually to the cognitive behavioral technics, that suggest that our thoughs control our feelings, not the facts per se.

One might say that if we think about the worst case scenario, this could motivate us to take action in order to prevent something bad to happen. But in many cases, like the one above, we can do nothing to prevent it. So we choose to worry 100% for something with 1% probability to happen, that makes 99% of unrealistic worrying plus 1% of unhelpful worrying.

This is something that somehow many of us do, without realizing it, since we were trained to think so for many years. The first step would be to understand the situations where such thoughts take place. The second step would be an enormous effort to start thinking about the best case scenario even when things seem to be a disaster. It will be a self challenging task, but the result justifies the effort.