I’m an optimist plain and simple.
I believe deep in my bones that the future can (and perhaps will) be better than the past or present. I’m always hopeful and also confident that things will generally improve over time, and this shows up every day in how I talk and act. I’m a glass is half full kind of guy, and I tend to fixate on opportunities to build a more beautiful world, for myself and my loved ones but also for the greater community of living beings out there.
This isn’t based on logic, although to me the facts seem to support an optimistic worldview. My optimism is built-in to who I am. It’s how I’m programmed to look at things. I’m not sure why, but that’s just how it is.
At the same time I say this I acknowledge there’s some crazy shit going on in the world these days that concerns me greatly. I look out on this beautiful country of ours and see people getting very angry at their fellow Americans for believing this or that. The hatred is palpable at times, and it’s worse than it was before. People talk about a civil war coming and I can see why. Everything is so hostile and insane, tempers are flaring, and it seems impossible to advocate successfully for any kind of middle ground.
Even in this case I feel optimistic. I feel that at some point level heads will prevail and everyone will realize that for all of our differences we’re more than 99% the same. We can and should co-exist. We all descend from the same original homo sapiens too, which means we’re all family, at least in a distant way.
I know it sounds naive but I honestly believe that everyone at some point will galvanize around the golden rule because that’s the best way to be. It’s time tested and true. It just makes sense to have empathy for our fellow humans. They’ll also have empathy for us. At times of hardship we will help one another because that’s the right thing to do.
I struggle with this kind of optimism though, the kind that assumes the larger world will become a more caring and hospitable place no matter what I do. The fact is that it’s brutal out there and I’ve experienced my fair share of terrible pain and suffering. I’ve been unable to sleep some nights, many nights, as my feelings inside raged and I wondered how and why so much misfortune could fall upon my family. Loved ones have died tragically, including some who took their own lives, and a baby that should’ve survived (and thrived).
I also just can’t understand why humanity hasn’t figured out how to be first and foremost compassionate and kind after four million years of living on this planet. We struggle to find meaning in our lives just as much now, if not more, than we did in the past, when there was far less food and material comfort in the world. So much progress has been made on so many things, such as curing diseases and building societies around agreed upon human rights and laws designed to create fairness. But new and disturbing challenges keep coming. Our collective mental health seems to have never been worse. People are literally killing their innocent neighbors for seemingly no reason other than they are heartbroken or full of hate.
Yet I still feel optimistic about humanity.
I still maintain that all humans are inherently good (and the reality is that the vast majority of people I’ve ever met are good people).
I still believe that we can and will all come together one day.
I still trust that things will get better. Because they can, and they should.
And I trust humanity. I honestly don’t know why I do, but I do. There’s so much evidence out there about why humanity shouldn’t be trusted, but I see the beautiful hearts of women and men everyday, and my heart tells me that all of these beautiful hearts, including my own, can become the strongest force in the whole world.
But this is a very different kind of optimism than the optimism that I typically bring to my daily life.
Being optimistic about humanity is believing that things will work out okay in a big picture sort of way. Even major setbacks can lead to transformative and significant steps forward. This is important. Terrible situations open the door for beautiful things to follow. It’s like the circle of life. You just have to give it enough time.
I have such little control in this grand scheme though. In fact, I usually have no control. There are too many people and too many forces much more powerful than I’ll ever be at play here.
My standard type of optimism is much more personal. I believe fully and completely that I can improve my world, and the world of those I love and care for. I’m almost always optimistic that with consistent effort, a good heart and a solid plan I can make things better.
Before I get into this further, I want to reiterate that I struggle at times with feeling good. Sometimes I can’t find my positive attitude because I hurt so much inside. But these times of struggle pass, they always do, no matter how hard they are. And that’s a big reason my optimism remains, even in the midst of terrible storms.
One of my core beliefs is that I can do anything I set my mind to. There are some qualifiers here of course. What I’m trying to accomplish needs to be realistic and not impossible, and it also can’t require people to feel a certain way about me or anything else, because I can’t control that. But generally everything else is on the table.
For example, if I want to learn a new skill because I think it will make my world better, then I do it. I practice. I commit. I steadily improve, and if I can sustain this effort then eventually I’ll get to where I want to be. That’s just true and always has been in my life. The power of this simple belief is huge.
But it takes patience and persistence. It often takes weeks or months or even years to accomplish certain things. For this you need staying power, which can be hard, but it can also be done.
This is how I learned to play guitar, and how to dance. It’s how I learned to cook and build things around the house. It’s how I make a positive impact in my community through my work. It’s also how my most beautiful relationships have grown, by putting in the time and effort.
I feel like I can always make my life better. I have yet to encounter a situation I couldn’t survive. And I’ve learned something from everything, even the most difficult moments, even when the only lesson to be learned is that life is unfair.
If I think things through long enough and from more than just my perspective, and I also explore and understand deeply how I’m feeling, then the path forward or at least the next few steps usually become clear. Then it’s all about making it happen through measured and consistent progress.
So even though I’m optimistic about where we’re all headed, including out into the larger universe and the great beyond, my real source of optimism is my trust in myself to make things better. I trust my resourcefulness and my instincts. I trust my ability to find my way through any situation, including the most trying or heartbreaking.
As I write these words, I can see that this comes across, at least to me, like a very practical sort of optimism, one in which we can positively influence our world by trusting our hearts, and then doing the work that our hearts are telling us to do. And I think that sums it up well, because that’s exactly what I believe.