Optimism
Optimism optimizes our options.
It isn't easy to be optimistic when your air is trapped in your chest and your world seems to be taking strange turns and you're on a deadline to boot! Times like these require realistic thinking. We need to be practical and that means don't have expectations of things turning out well because you're probably just setting yourself up for disappointment. Brace yourself for the worst. Then if something better just happens along you'll feel terrific. How funny that we equate realism with limited choices. Get real means don't get excited.
To be optimistic is to think intelligently. We've all heard the saying, “As a man thinks in his heart, so shall he become.” If I run around all day thinking petty thoughts about my coworkers, how unappreciated I am and how quickly the world is going downhill, well, I ask you, is this intelligent? Is this the best way to be using our intelligence? These thoughts show little mental stretching. If I think petty thoughts I become petty. This means I attract petty outcomes to me. People begin treating me as if I'm a petty person. You know what I mean, I'm unnoticed and unappreciated.
Positive thinking requires that same self assured attitude we have when we declare, “What's the use in voting it won't make any difference anyhow.” To be optimistic is to be curious about trying new techniques that may produce better results. To optimize is to look and be the very best you can imagine. Petty gossipy thoughts are not our very best. Curiosity killed the way the cat used to think but satisfaction brought him back to a new and better way to live.
To be optimistic is to project and reflect the very best within us. It takes practice to see the best in our self and others. Seeing the brightest outcome takes more inner strength then seeing everything fall apart and even if it does fall apart optimism makes us start pondering on, I wonder… I wonder leads us to imagining the next step. To project thoughts of encouragement and confidence may seem awkward at first but practice will replace the awkwardness with a feeling of my thoughts matter. It takes intelligence and diligence to set us on the right course of action. Choosing optimistically is visualizing what we would look like if we worked in the spirit of cooperation instead of enjoying talking down other people. Choose to think with optimism, to speak with optimism, to spread optimism throughout the world faster than the most salacious gossip. Now that's fast!
As a group of individuals we are projecting out into the world thoughts about the two presidential candidates. Most of the talk on the air waves is negative because the thoughts are negative and pessimistic. We associate negative thinking with truth, being right and practicality. We see optimism as wishful and impractical thinking. That's ridiculous! To project pessimism into the world steals the goodness right out of our future. Can you afford that? Some people would rather be gloomily right than courageously be involved with setting about new and innovative ideas. The visualizations that are filled with fear and hate can get a group scared enough to gather hateful storm clouds on the horizon. It isn't practical to dwell on negative scary projections. To be a part of this type of thinking makes our thoughts part of those hateful storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
We've all made plenty of time to worry, veg, obsess, criticize and degrade. We can choose to learn to concentrate on virtues like optimism and over time the awkwardness of feeling optimistic wanes and we begin to see results by others treating us like we matter or we can continue down the road of I know how it'll turn out anyway and contribute thoughts that stall and inhibit new ideas from taking root. Pondering on optimism opens us to greater intelligence as individuals and en masse. It can lead to the ability to appreciate one another more than the desire to dominate one another. To believe in the axiom Dominate or be Dominated is to live in fear. Over a period of time consistent fearful thoughts corrupt the individual and groups. This is limited and unintelligent because domination exists only if you and some of your friends are dominated. Optimism by its nature protects and encourages ideas. It gives the courage to overcome selfish and fearful notions and instills the confidence of I Am. I matter. I am a part of… and We are. We matter. We are a part of… There is responsibility in the way we think about our self, others, the environment and elected officials. If we doom them and their ideas hard enough we might just get that doom right back at us.
Ultimately, optimism sidesteps blaming because that's about shaming or being shamed. The results are limiting at best. Anyway, the responsibility of who previously made the choices will be revealed as the situation unfolds in the future. So, let's choose to be courageous as a group and begin imagining deep in our hearts solutions that optimize our intelligence.
Optimism optimizes our options.