Ambrose Bierce's definition of a PESSIMIST: A WELL INFORMED OPTIMIST
OPTIMISM by Gilfillan Scott (from the February 15, 1915 PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL)
"It's easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song;
But the man worth while is the man with a smile
When everything goes dead wrong."
Optimism is the habit of looking on the bright side.
Pessimism is the habit of looking on the dark side.
The pessimist sees only the cloud.
The optimist sees the silver lining. He knows the cloud is there all right but he looks at it from the proper angle and with a smiling face and he catches the reflection of his own smile.
In a previous article I commented upon various kinds of contagion, including laughter, bravery, fear and anger, all of which are contagious by the force of EXAMPLE.
Reflection along this line reveals an overwhelming responsibility upon each of us towards our fellow humans.
As example is a mighty force, we need to be perpetually careful how we exercise it. Walk down the street and meet smiling faces; and, unless your liver is at war with you, you'll smile without considering why; but, if you meet sour, grouchy faces, It won't be so easy to smile, and you'll possibly feel sour without knowing why.
Example therefore must be remembered all the time.
We need to bottle up troubles which can't be remedied and cork them tight, or they'll spill around like ink and discolor everything within reach.
Optimism promotes remedies for troubles.
Pessimism does (nothing) but aggravate troubles.
We can cultivate which we choose. If you prefer melons why cultivate lemons?
If the world has handed you a lemon, what's the use of cultivating it and watering it with the tears of self-pity?
Optimism can be cultivated .until It becomes a HABIT, and habit is only a matter of time.
A baseball pitcher practices a certain twist of the ball many hundreds of times until it becomes a habit.
We practice all kinds of actions, such as the motions in swimming, the steering of an automobile, the balancing of the body on one leg at a time in walking, until we do these things with ease and certainty.
A man may shave every morning without fear of lopping one of his ears or cutting a slice off his nose.
Why?
Because he has made shaving a habit and practice makes perfect. If habit is so strong a force that it can make difficulties easy, isn't it the height of good judgment to lay hold of habit with both fists and use it? If habit will help you in baseball, swimming, in steering an automobile in walking, in shaving and in finding your mouth with a fork (no. you musn't eat with a knife and very seldom with a spoon), Why not make habit help you to be an optimist?
The world needs optimists to brighten it and help it in times of trouble.
Did it ever occur to you to write a list of your troubles?
I'll bet you never did.
Just take a pencil and paper and sit down in front of yourself and say, "NOW, MY FRIEND, WHAT ARE YOUR TROUBLES?"
Be businesslike about it and unload the whole lot on paper without reservation.
Now you have the situation before you in concrete form in place of carrying around in your brain a confused mass of troubles each trying to be considered first.
An experienced lawyer or doctor or merchant or statesman (Woodrow Wilson for instance) makes a list of matters demanding attention; and without fussing or worrying, but with calm deliberation, deals with one at a time.
When meal time arrives he dismisses thought and eats, and when bed time arrives he dismisses thought and sleeps. So he conserves his energy and maintains his sanity, yet accomplishes his ends. As this method succeeds in dealing with ordinary business so it will succeed in dealing with troubles.
With your list of troubles before you and your determination made to deal with them in a businesslike way your troubles are already half overcome, for a job well begun is half done.
Why am I discussing troubles?
Because pessimism is the cause as well as the result of allowing troubles to fester; a double barrelled gun directed against yourself; whilst optimism is a mainspring inducing and suggesting lines of action to overcome troubles; and action is the finest antidote for worry because definite work is a relief from indefinite doubt.
Fear and laziness and false pride produce pessimists. Fear of having to do what we don't like doing, something laziness and pride object to, can cause more trouble than the doing.
We will go miles further round rather than go back and admit that we started wrong.
The pessimist is pig headed; and. having started wrong, will grouch and grunt and persist in plugging along in the wrong direction, cursing the world and finding fault with the roughness of the rough road whilst he tramps further and further from the smooth road.
The optimist has learned the lesson of eternal vigilance; laughs at fear; kicks laziness ; admits he's wrong with a smile: takes a good look around him; spots the right road and shouts the news to the pessimist, who only growls and doggedly refuses to listen to reason.
The pessimist lives in his own little hell.
The optimist dreams of heaven.
How is a pessimist to become an optimist?
By the same means a drunkard becomes temperate; or a man of violent temper becomes reasonable; or a spendthrift becomes a saver with comfortable possessions, and an easy mind.
Here we are drawn back to our friend HABIT: commencing with DETERMINATION, APPLICATION AND PATIENCE.
And, if habit is to help us to be optimists, the question arises how long does it take to form a habit?
It depends upon the habit.
Also It depends upon the individual.
Again, It depends upon the handicap.
Sweeping ifs and buts aside, however, let's recognize that all possible action can become habit, the length of time required to form the habit varying with the conditions.
This is a safe and sound proposition.
I am in sympathy with all wrong doers when I say that it does appear if a man starts self reform everything is against him.
I believe the law of the survival of the fittest works against him.
If he can stand to his guns and grin and bear for a little while, however, he will soon feel a sense of WINNING.
That will give him courage.
If he backslides it will mean beginning all over again; but if he grits his teeth and hangs on tight, the law which hindered him will relax and the law of good habit will begin to help.
Each day of continued grip will find him one day further from his old self, one day stronger, one day nearer to the formed habit.
Those
early days are precious days and they are hard days.
A pessimist is being converted into an optimist. A mistaken man is being transformed into a sensible fellow.
Yes, it takes time.
Sudden conversions mean sudden convulsions, and your get-good-quick schemes are like your get-rich-quick schemes.If troubles ceased philosophy would cease.
Hence acquiring optimism means preparing for trouble.
We have all heard that clever little sentence "never trouble trouble 'till trouble troubles you," but wise men take the precaution to be always prepared for trouble.
We have also heard that our greatest troubles are those which never come; the trouble consisting of fear of the coming.
Fear is a destroyer of energy, and he who spends his energy fearing trouble will have no energy to meet it when It comes.
The optimist escapes all that. He has formed the habit of looking for the silver lining; and, no matter how dark the cloud, he invariably sees the bright side. Habit helps him and prevents fear from hindering him. He is the man who wins out whilst others go under in a crisis. His habitual brightness renders him capable whilst others become crushed and incapable.
It is the optimist who leads the forlorn hope, and if he fails it is because the pessimists stand in his way.
I would rather be an optimist and mistaken than a pessimist and right.
I would rather live in a fool's paradise than a too wise hell.
Pessimism means a life of misery.
Optimism means hopefulness, strength to fight adversity and never say die. and it conduces to LONG LIFE, HEALTH AND PROSPERITY.
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