Friday, March 2, 2012

40 days of Lent: A Spirtual Journey -- Day Nine

Now this a challenge for sure.  The mission for day 9: "Challenge those who are pessimistic. Speak to them with an absurd optimism."

http://thethirdthing.edublogs.org/files/2011/
03/optimist-comic-1vyprfv.gif
So which one would you be?  The guy on the left or the guy on the right?  Now if we were talking about a glass of water, I would surely say the glass was half full when it gets to the mid-point.  Or would I?  When I think about it, if I have been drinking from the glass, I would probably say the glass is half empty.  But if I just found it on the counter with liquid to the halfway mark, I would say it was half full.  I guess it presupposed your prospective.

Now the patient in this picture appears to be pretty bad off.  Half dead seems to describe him pretty well.  Of course if he is just waking from a coma, then, to describe him as half alive would indeed be a very happy description.  It is of course all in how you look at it.

I have been accused of being a Pollyanna sometimes.  I do tend to look on the bright side of things.  I try to be encouraging.  It can be annoying to realists and downright offensive to pessimists.  So to be "absurdly optimistic" is not as easy as one might think.  I tried it.  Somehow it did not seem sincere.  Was this a shortcoming on my part?  Did I find it hard to be optimistic at that particular moment?  Did it seem inappropriate?  

Things will work out.  They always do.  We move on.  As I write this, this becomes a part of the past.  Yet I believe that I will continue on, write some more and then some more and all it, I believe, will be read....at least by one person....maybe two!  I also believe that someday someone somewhere will read my writings and say, "Whoa!  He should be on Ellen" (Oprah is hidden on cable somewhere these days).  Hope springs eternal...absurd or not.

You too can be a star!  Just smile and look on the sunny side of life.  It worked for Monty Python...it can work for you!!

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