Optimism
© Susan Todd-Raque
I would rather see a glass as half-full rather than half-empty. There is a growing body of research that supports optimism as having medicinal value. Those who believe they are going to get better are more likely to get better quicker than those who are negative about their chances. I am not saying there is a guarantee to being optimistic; rather, there is just a positive correlation between the two. This is like the so-called “placebo effect” when someone believes strongly enough about doing something that will help, it helps.
There are people who are so “optimistic” they deny reality. We call them “Pollyannaish” or as those see through rose-colored glasses, refusing to see a truth. Most people say they would pick a sunny day over a cloudy one, but there are some people prefer a cloudy day. There is always a seat at the table for those who are pessimistic, who see the glass as half-full, because sometimes seeing the glass half-full does not mean they are being negative. They too, just like the optimist, want to figure out how to fill it up.
It appears from the people I have been talking to lately there are a lot of folks, even the optimistic sort, who are having more and more difficulty holding on to their optimism. There are certainly good reasons as to why: fewer and fewer jobs, a frightening number of suicides in our area in recent months, and prices of everyday necessities going up while our dollar is shrinking.
How does one hold onto optimism when it appears everything you think about or hear on the news brings you down? Those of you old enough will remember CBS with Walter Cronkite used to have as his final news clip entitled “Charles Kuralt on the Road”. Mr. Kuralt would travel across our land and find heartwarming stories, mostly in small towns like Blue Ridge. He would tell the story with most of these stories being about people helping other people and you would leave all the bad news of the day behind, feeling uplifted and optimistic about the good old USA.
I want to leave you with a Charles Kuralt like tidbit. In a new book, Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America, the authors studied the attitudes of the millennials, those born between 1982 thru 2003. Paraphrasing, these were the results about the generation that will soon be running our country: They recognize the importance of being a team player. They believe in compromise to finding a solution but will fight for what they believe in. They believe things happen from the bottom up, not top down.
These young people give me reason for optimism.
