Optimism Is Not Blissful Ignorance

Being optimistic does not make you immune to trauma, it does not turn a blind eye to reality. What it does do is allow you to proceed through life with the ability to see a wall you can climb over, not a dead end.

The fingers have been pointing so wildly that everything is pretty much a blur in my mind. Does knowing who or what got us here really matter right this minute? Blame is a poison that kills forward progress.

People ask me all the time how I can keep turning pitfalls into possibilities, how I am so resilient after so many blows in life. The only thing I can say is that I had good examples in my life of how to pick myself up and soldier on.

But it's really a little more than that I guess. It's a mind set, a very personal thing that only you can create. There is no amount of personal growth seminars, books, or anything on this planet that can change your mind but your own self. Don't get me wrong, influences can help you down the path to optimism, but ultimately the decision is yours alone.

The naysayers would have us believe that our optimism is ignorant, that by having a positive attitude we are oblivious to the multitude of problems in this world.

I respectfully disagree, what I think optimism does for us is allow us to see more avenues for overcoming the problems, it allows us to get out of the muck that the problem is mired in.

My grandmother used to say "if you lay with dogs, you'll get fleas". Fleas bite and make you itch ... why would I want that? Same thing goes for optimism, if I go the negative route it's just going to be painful.

I would love to see more of this approach in our media. I would love to see the same from our Congress. We have simply got to move on, it starts with putting one optimistic foot in front of the other. Let's all walk out the door of this abysmal attitude, this gloom and doom, and shut it firmly behind us.

There is a better world out there for the taking, we all just have to have faith, and make the optimistic view our reality. We have the power to make this happen.

When in doubt ... ask the geese .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcyZJiXr90

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