Optimism

In my last post, I talked a little about how we are a society of wishers. Last month, a presenter at a conference I went to said we are a county of "happily ever afters." After the speaker's trip to Great Britain, he said he realized how utterly optimistic Americans are. We end letters with "Have a fantastic day!" and say things like "You'll do better next time" after a blunder. What these thoughts have me wondering about is this: "Is optimism something to strive for?"

Maybe it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we believe things will be better tomorrow, they will be. Maybe optimism makes us happier people. I've often been told I'm pessimistic. And, like any pessimist, I always respond with "I'm just a realist." But honestly, I'm constantly trying to be more optimistic. I probably tell myself once a week to "look on the bright side." I even had a Winston Churchill quote in my bedroom at one point that said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

But the world isn't full of happily ever afters, is it? And it won't get better next time unless you do something to fix it. All through my elementary, middle school, and high school years, I was in Future Problem Solving and I always took on the task of "problem generator." Before ever solving problems, we had to identify what could go wrong with any future scenario. And I was very good at assessing a situation for problems. What I learned from that was that sometimes seeing all the difficulties in an opportunity allows you to better handle a new situation.

All of this is just food for thought. I'm not saying that optimism is bad. I'm definitely not saying pessimism is good. Sometimes the silver linings get us through the day. But maybe sometimes being the "realist" isn't so bad either.