"You're just far too pessimistic", I was recently told.

I nearly choked on my wine. Naturally, I protested my innocence. Something about being a realist. A pragmatist. How I was only making reference to the facts as I saw them. And the facts undeniably painted a less than rosy picture. It simply wasn't fair to be portrayed as a pessimist.

But how come I've spent the last couple of months being anything other than optimistic? OK - getting mugged isn't going to make me any happier. And my mortgage going up isn't a cause for celebration. Being ripped off by cowboys who claimed to know what they're doing in a garden wasn't great. Credit crunch. Falling prices. Markets down. And the cracks were beginning to show. Quite literally in my case. I'd just finished correcting the buffoonery of my garden contractors, and was relaxing in my nice new garden. I glanced up at the back of the house. It had been quite a while since I'd done this, largely on the grounds that I wasn't actually able to get into the garden to do so, such was the neglect. But as I gazed up there it was. Was that there before? I had a vague recollection that something was mentioned in my survey when I bought the house.

Upstairs in my bedroom I checked the report from three years ago. Some cracking was apparent, it told me, but these appeared to be fairly old, so were of no cause for concern. Now, it didn't concern me at the time, as I bought the house. But I went back down and had another look. Had it deterioated? I wasn't sure. I remember that I needed to think about getting some repointing done, so I added this to the list of things I wanted to sort out. It's a long list, but never mind. Just another job.

But things are never that simple. Oh no. Not here they're not. Especially at 6am on my way out of the door with too little sleep. I was on my way to France. If this wasn't a cause for optimism I don't know what is. My bag was packed and I was off on a mini adventure in the Alps. Sweet. I locked the door and turned my back then spun around on my heels. What was that? A crack? Was that there before? I had no time to think about it. I had a train to catch. So I left, with the image in my mind.

How pessimistic can I be? It turns out that my pessimism, left unchecked, can go off on a mini adventure of it's own. A tiny crack, that may or may not have been there before, became in my fevered imagination a gaping hole - a chasm of such magnitude that it quite possibly was the gateway to hell itself. OK - I exaggerate there, but it wasn't that far off. As I walked up my road on my return, I was relieved to find my house still standing.

I spent the day looking for a surveyor. What would he tell me? I even looked to see how much I could borrow to shore up the collapsing remains of my house. It became too much. I logged off, picked up the phone and did what every pessimist does in times of peril. I dialled my mum's number. It wasn't long before I was in the bosom of my family. I needed to talk about this. Get my head straight. Get a plan and work out what to do. I was tired and worried. Worried about how much I was worrying. Worried about how serious things had got. I needed some comfort. Some words of advice, a guiding hand and words of wisdom.

"You're just far too pessimistic", wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Less than a week later, my house was examined quite carefully by a surveyor. He poked about. He asked me questions. In truth, I think he padded out his inspection on the grounds it might have been embarrasing to charge me the full fee for telling me that I really had nothing to worry about. He told me that there really was no evidence of any recent activity. Buildings don't just stand for decades then fall down. He took a few photos and made some notes. I gave him his cheque, and he said he'd send me his report. He'd probably have to pad that out a bit as well. After all, it would probably say something along the lines of "You're just far too pessimistic".

On the bus home tonight, I was re-reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". A particular passage resonated with me. Referring to his friends who were with him on a road trip, he writes how they were not enjoying themselves due to the heat on the road, and how it clouded their outlook. He writes:

"All day while I've been thinking and talking about Phaedrus they must have been thinking about how bad all this is. That's what's really wearing them down. The thought."

Have I learnt my lesson? Time will tell. All I can say is that I'm optimistic about it.