He does not worry nearly as much as I do and in fact he teases me about how much I worry. For example, today when I drove him to his friend's house for a birthday party, he started saying things like "Oh no, we could hit a pothole in the road and bounce out of the car and .... he just kept adding ridiculous things to the scenario to make his point that I worry too much. He and his dad and my daughter, when she is visiting, sometimes gang up on me and tease me about it. But the way I look at it, I am only trying to make sure I have solutions ready for potential problems. I like the scout motto--"Be Prepared."
His dad doesn't worry about anything. He says he survived being shot at in the military and he is a cancer survivor and he is not going to waste time worrying. He rides a motorcycle in rush hour traffic along with people talking on cell phones. I could never do that without a lot of anxiety. I told him I wouldn't ride on the motorcycle with him in traffic until our son is grown.
My son does not see himself as the pessimist he says I am, but he is not as much an optimist as his dad.
My son sees himself as being more of a pragmatist and said he liked the advice in John C Maxwell's book, "Talent is Never Enough." In the book it says he teaches people at his conferences to stop working on their weaknesses and start working on their strengths and that it has been his observation that people can increase their ability in an area by only 2 points on a scale of 1 to 10. If your natural talent in an area is a 4, with hard work you might be able to increase it to a 6, but if you find a place where you are a 7 you have the potential to become a 9 or even a 10 if it's your greatest area of strength and you work exceptionally hard. My son thinks he is about a 2 in physical coordination and strength and if he worked really hard he would still be below average and he thinks he would be better off using his time to work on his strengths. I do think scouting will give him a chance to work on his strengths and I am trying to convince him. I just think he might need to delay the long hikes and camping trips that the other kids seem to like so much until he can see for himself that there are also things that he will have fun doing.
He says he knows our scout troop is more sports and outdoor oriented than others because he knows some of the older kids. But two of his older friends are in the scout troop and neither of them do sports--they are in band and they were both identified as gifted in the public school, so there is a small group of smart and not at all athletic boys. I am hoping they can talk him into staying.
