Labels

For years, a close friend has labeled me the optimist and himself the pessimist. Mostly, the labels remain unnoticed and forgotten like those inside well-worn clothing. It’s not that either one of us displays overt, stereotypical characteristics of these traits. That is, not too often. Nor are the native denominators of our essential personalities wholly unconcealed. It’s that the labels seem to provide a way to identify and keep-simple some of the less-subtle life-view disparities between us and help to avoid the kind of ubiquitous—and too-often enabling—indulgence in psychobabble so popular in modern American society. For us, it works and that is not a bad thing.