Optimism & Hope

Hope and optimism go hand-in-hand. The dictionary.com definition of the word optimism is as follows.


op•ti•mism op-tuh-miz-uh m

–noun

1. a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.

2. the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.

3. the belief that goodness pervades reality.

An optimistic approach to all problems can keep us in a state of hope. If we can search for and find goodness in all situations we can find hope.

There is a fable about a set of identical twins. One finds hope in all things, the other is the opposite, a true pessimist. The worried parents took the twins to a psychologist and followed his instructions. On their next birthday they put the twins in separate room to open their presents. The optimist was given a box for manure. The pessimist was given the best toys and gifts – a computer, toy car, etc. When the pessimist opened his gifts he was sure the computer would just break and the car wasn’t as good as the one his friend had. They looked in on the optimistic child and found he was thrilled with his huge box of manure. When asked why he was so happy with that gift, he replied, “Where there is this much manure there must be a pony!” Hope is being able to find the source of every good gift.