Realistic Optimism

The advantages of being optimistic are clear...but to be blindly optimistic seems like a maladaptive behavior. Blind optimism sets you up for disappointment. Depression. Bitterness. Without regard for the legitimacy of your 'glass half full' approach to life, you can find yourself broken down and beaten by the inevitable odds. Am I bashing the hopeless romantics who can find the positive in their quintessential glass of hope being repeatedly knocked over...perhaps even smashed to an infinite number of unrecognizable pieces...? ("my hope can now flow freely!"-they'd say. Crap.) How can I bash those masochistic crazies, relentlessly delighting in pain?

But even the best of punching bags will eventually start to rip at the seams.

So, might I suggest a better approach...a tweak, if you will, to this method of slow and agonizing destruction: An optimist who leans towards the realistic. Better yet, be realistically optimistic. Approach life like a baseball player--if he fails 7 out of 10 times at bat, he's still a damn good baseball player! Get out there and go for it, knowing that it could be one of those 7 failures... but also that maybe, just maybe, it's one of those 3 successes....perhaps even a homerun!

Don't run from the failure or overshoot your odds. Prepare and work towards your goal in order to be efficacious... but be content in the fact that this includes the prospect of getting your glass blown to smithereens.

....this, of course, coming from a pessimist mascerading as a realist...who's secretly an optimist running from failure by doing only what I will excel in. But, hey, who do you know that takes their own advice?! I'm working on it...but I'm prepared to fail.


-- Post From My iPhone.