It's tough being an optimist

 

 

Folks, it's tough being an optimist.

 

For one thing, I have never met a true optimist. Some people say that I'm the kind of person who always notices the silver lining in a cloud, but let me tell you . . .

 

I size up that cloud for a long time first.

 

If I were a true optimist, I suspect I wouldn't even notice that the silver lining had a cloud attached to it.

 

But as I said, it's tough being an optimist, especially when you're not a true optimist. I mean, how are you supposed to act when you feel terrible? How are you supposed to act when other people feel terrible? Especially if you're like me, who notices other people's emotions and tends to absorb them like a sponge.

 

If feelings were like fish, my life would look like this pretty regularly:



 

 

First, I wake up to another crumby morning.

 

Sometimes I feel like laughing when somebody tells me that I'm a cheerful person. They don't realize that I go through this process in one form or other. Every. Single. Day.

 

Thankfulness is the key to optimism.

 

Another key is singing. And faith. But especially singing.

 

 

The toughest part of being a pseudo-optimist like me is determining how to respond to the pessimists of the world. I have some really good friends (whom I love to death!) who tend to live on the darker side of life.

 

 

 

 

 Too late, you realize that perhaps you need to be a little more sensitive to the hardships of people around you. Perhaps your gratitude isn't as contagious as you had hoped.

The problem is that the non-optimists seem to assume that just because your fish are alive, it must mean that they were never dead. So what if my fish were dead for only five minutes when theirs have been dead for five days? My fish were still quite dead. But of course, they don't think of that. All they know is that once fish are dead, they don't come back to life again. Mine are alive, so they must have never been dead.

 

 

 I guess in the "real" world, they'd be right.

 

But I don't live in the "real" world. I live in the super-real world.

"Jesus said to her,

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

John 11:25

 

 

 

But THEN people tend to treat "Optimist" like it's a BAD word. Or at least I assume that the "O" word stands for "optimist." I was so sheltered that I only know like four bad words, and none of them start with "O."

 

What's wrong with being an optimist anyway?

 

I would rather be a pseudo-optimist than a genuine pessimist.

At this point, you
can't figure out whether to be more annoyed at yourself or at them. Of course, everybody hates it when someone is too cheerful. But pseudo-optimists hate it when they've won the victory over their dead fish and no one else seems to understand that fish tend to come alive when you at least pretend to be cheerful--by being thankful.

 

But I know that some people really do have it hard. They have perfectly good reasons to feel depressed, so I do my best to tone myself down, sit with them, and understand.

 

The problem is, even though I can't possibly understand someone else's depression completely, I absorb it better than they think. I am very sympathetic.



 

And so there you have it. I lose when I'm cheerful with these people, and I lose when I'm sympathetic.

 

 

 

It's tough being an optimist.

 

 

 

 

BUT (because I cannot possibly end on a depressing note!), I am thankful that, by the grace of God, I am one.

 

Even if I'm only a pseudo-optimist.

 

At least I know that my fish will come alive again--eventually. And that's not because I'm that great, but because God gives me overcoming power to resurrect my dead-for-five-minutes-or-more fish.

"As it is written, 'For your sake we [our fish] are being killed all day long; we are regarded as sheep [fish] to be slaughtered.'
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
Romans 8:36-37