The Optimist

The Optimist

By John W. Vander Velden                

 

I would consider myself an optimist.  I think being an optimist is a good thing.  It means that you are hopeful about what lies before you.  Seeing the better, if not the best, drives me to trust others.  But being an optimist carries a price…and sometimes that price is high.  For seldom do things follow the perfect path and often optimism leads to disappointment.  Disappointment leads to questions, questions about many things, but most often whether my hopes have been well placed to begin with.

I am not a fool, or at least I hope I am not a fool.  During those times I have been crushed, I recognized that hopes and reality rarely mesh completely.  Yet, I continue to hope for the best but remain certain I will have to settle for what comes.  Seems a bit ridiculous doesn’t it?  Maybe it is.  But, to me, it beats the alternative.  Should I expect disaster on every turn and be surprised when destruction does not come?  Would living in such a “dark cloud” improve my daily life?  Yes, living so would eliminate the moments of disappointments, but would not everyday be filled with depressed feelings of a world filled with impossibilities.

That type of existence does not seem a “living life to the fullest” kinda’ life.  But perhaps I understand that darkness more than others.  For though I would call myself an optimist, I deal with a chronic darkness.  Few would know that facet of my health.  I do not mention this weakness for sympathy or some misplaced honor, but rather as a statement of fact…it is something I have to deal with every day.  Everyone has battles they face, unknown to all but their closest, and this is one of mine.

Perhaps optimism fuels depression.  Who can say?  Perhaps feeling deeply about things fuels it.  I couldn’t tell you.  But I am an optimist.  I hope for things that seem beyond the normal range of possibility…even though I understand those results are unlikely.  Optimism sees the candle in a dark room.  Pessimism stands near that small light and only sees the blackness.  Which would you prefer to be? 

I see God in what others might believe a cold dark world.  If that is the only light I see…then let me be the optimist!

(387 Words)  3-7-2017