Optimism, pessimism, and problems

This is something a friend of mine said today:

"I like problems because I'm an optimist.

"When I find a problem, I talk about it and I find lots of parts to the problem and I go over and over how bad the parts are. It annoys people, because they think I'm complaining.

"I'm not complaining. Complaining is the response of someone who thinks a problem can't be fixed. What I'm doing is working it through. I talk so much about how bad the problem is because my underlying belief is that the problem can be fixed.

"Responding to a problem by smiling and saying 'oh well, can't be helped', that's the action of a pessimist.

"I'm an optimist.

"I like problems because I'm an optimist.

"Because I'm an optimist, I like problems."

Now I've misquoted him a lot (that's what you get for not taking notes in conversations), but that resonated with me. Actually, it's a long time since I heard anyone say anything that rang so true.

Because I like problems too.

I always thought that made me a pessimist, always looking for the faults in everything.

But maybe not.