Interesting place to start introspecting. This post was not actually intended to be here. I wrote it as response to Ashish's post. I was too lazy to write another so here it is again. Ashish says he has been called a 'cynic' and a 'pessimist' by the two people who know him best. I have been at the other end of the spectrum most of my life. I do not remember ranting or ever play the blame game seriously as far back as I can remember.I might blame someone momentary but I think God built in me an automatic system to banish the blame almost immediately. Somewhere, I guess, I feel it is a sin. In fact I kinda use to loose my temper when someone around me would turn to whining and blaming.

I am a much more tolerant now to the pessimists, cynics and even the whiners of the world. I realise we need them all. They are the ones who look into the minutest details of everything important. They are the ones who organise major tournaments and events in the world.They insure governments function smoothly and trains run on schedule. In fact they are the ones who make those precise schedules in the first. They help make our dining experience a prized memory. Leave it to a reckless optimist and you are sure to have a nightmare to haunt you for the rest of your life. I wouldn't want a fiery flamboyant female to be my surgeon if I ever find myself on an operation table. I would actually run out of a plane if I learnt it was being piloted by an irrational optimistic bloke like me. We definitely need our cynics and pessimists to run the world. Of course they sometimes run it aground like they have done with meticulous precision with the beautifully planned sub prime lending. That of course, is another story.

But we also need the eternal optimists to make the world a beautiful, buoyant, wonderful rollercoaster experience we would like to talk about sipping tea on a wintry night in a camp in the hills into the wee hours of the night when we are old. We need our interesting storytellers and courageous adventurers who realise the dangers of their venture only after they have already jumped, head first, right into the middle of it. Otherwise who would write 'Old Man and the Sea' and who would have discovered America or India... and who would discover a new planet inhabited by people more intelligent and more advanced and more cultured than the earthlings. Without both optimists and the pessimists we would not have the bulls and the bears.
Yes I am a lot more accepting of the cynics and the pessimists of the world today than I was a couple of decades ago. As to being able to say 'no' I absolutely find it impossible to say so. Harpreet my wife, God bless her soul, used to say thank God you are not a woman or you'll always be pregnant.