A story of optimism, written for Happy hours https://housing.com/lookup.
Visions of positivity, sounds so cheerful.
This happy hour says, optimism can be found all around, in the laughter of children, in excitement of our pets face when we get back after work, and in the smile of the loved ones after months of being away. And now to share my story of optimism, of life, of love, about the world, and its future.
pictures that the prompt throws up in it about what inspires optimism or more precisely what does not let pessism in.
What is optimism? It is the hopefulness, and confidence about the future or the success of something, it has wonderful synonyms like hope, confidence, buoyancy, cheer .good. But we essentially think in pictures, what are the pictures that emerge with these words.
The graphic that appeared to me, when I read the prompt was, we are all lying in the gutter and some of us see the stars, these stars could be after banging our heads, on fall or stars for us to rise to. Optimism could come from nature or nurture. I cannot say, part of being optimist is keeping one’s head pointed towards the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There are many dark moments that we endure, our faiths sorely tested, but if could not give up to despair there is no defeat or death.
One story of optimism that never ceases to amaze me is the story of the hare and the tortoise, we are so focused on the hare and what to learn from him, we learn the wrong lesson from the Tortoise, one could say that the Tortoise was foolhardy to participate in race where his opponent was definitely faster than him, we need to learn optimism, and courage from the Tortoise more than perseverance. Think over this when you have the time, let’s move on, like I have had to each time, life threw a challenge at me.
Being grim, and cautious has become a second nature, simply because we have forgotten to look at things like adventure, we need reassurances, that yes I am just like the other person, we have lost the courage to be unique. It is easier to hide in mediocrity than take a step. Of course there are failures, and success, the journey is about going on despite of it.
My personal anthem has been listen to mustn’ts, listen to the don’ts, listen to shouldn’ts the impossible, the won’ts. Listen closely to me… anything can happen, that’s it, anything can happen.
Through my journey I realized, is optimism is about gaining strength, courage and confidence with every experience in which we really stop to look at fear in the face. We are able to tell ourselves, “I have lived through this horror; I can take the next thing that comes along.” It’s about doing the thing I think I cannot.
I have to come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when I am suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight that I can force our wings to unravel and begin my flight. As I fly I still may not know where we are going, but the miracle is the unfolding of the wings. I may not know where I am going, but we do know that as long as my wings are spread I know the winds will carry me.
Just leaving you with a quote…
“If you’re reading this…
Congratulations, you’re alive.
If that’s not something to smile about,
then I don’t know what is.”
― Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head
Parwatisingari's Weblog 