Eyes Wide Open

I’ve had this conversation with my son and thought about it many times as to why I am such an optimist. It isn’t that I’m blind to all the world’s issues or choosing to be ignorant. My eyes are wide open and I simply have to hope and push for more and better. Maybe it my own need for self preservation—I mean if we are doomed in every possible way, what becomes the point of life and quite frankly, I can’t imagine that sort of thinking does anyone any good.

Instead, I choose to believe we can all do better. We’ve done it before so why not again? I realize this is a difficult way of thinking, especially when every day we are bombarded by news articles and stories so dire and depressing that it is easy to feel overwhelmed and sink into despair. But again, what does this change?

Now, I’m not saying we are robots nor are we void of feeling. We need to let ourselves feel sad or hurt by situations but then we move forward. Time is continuous but not endless for each of us. I also am not advocating we change who we are. My oldest son is a bit of a pessimist and this helps him at times. But we also need to step back and reassess sometimes. Ask ourselves if there is realistically no other outcomes for a situation. Most likely we’ll find we’ve left something out.

Happy writing this week!