I think, optimism is both good and bad. If an optimist goes for a picnic and gets lost on their way to the park and then realizes they packed a can of beets instead of some nice fresh scones with jam, and then it starts raining......an optimist can drop everything and go dance in the rain.
And then you can say you had a wonderful day playing in the rain, instead of saying you had a horrible day during which your picnic was ruined completely.
It's nice to be around an optimistic person. Though they might not be particularly down-to- earth, they have a bounciness that emanates from them like the sun. No one wants to be the only mourner at the party, so optimism is contagious.
Optimists have a nice balance with pessimists. Together they find what is really true. That half the water has been drunk, but you still have the water to enjoy.
The bad thing about optimism?
The occasional vast ocean of false, unreal hope.
Optimists set themselves up for it. Hoping. Feeling that they know that something good is going to happen is almost like a trusting the enemy. If everything is going to work out in the end, what happens when the end is devastating? Then what do they do? What if the events the optimists are given to work with are so sad that they can't find anything good? They give themselves more false hope, and while a lot of the time it makes them better to be around, sometimes, all it does is delay the realization that they were mistaken.
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3 comments:
Speaking from a truly optomistic point of view, I don't think the devastation is as devastating. I think I would say to myself (and actually have on occasion), "Well, that was a bit terrible, but at least I have learned something - and will strive to never do that again".
Or sometimes you just cry. But the optomist bounces back instead of being pessimistically shattered.
ello pipa! i em posting noww. what e wondeful internet accent i hav. anyways... i really agree with what you said about optomism.
Hmmm.. "pessimistically shattered".. i like the way you put that Shari. I am Piper's friend, Demi. That statement reminds me of my sister sometimes. Sometimes i think she is a hopeless pessimist, but then i am reminded that she is a wonderful, sometimes optomistic, person.
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