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“’Optimism,’ said Candide, ‘is a mania for maintaining that
all is well when things are going badly.’”
-Voltaire, Candide
Optimism, quite frankly, suffers from a bad name. This has been going on for quite some time. All the nasty people, it seems, go down in history: Benito Mussolini, the Marquis DeSade, Atilla the Hun, Donald J. Trump. All the cheerful ones repose in obscurity. This is a situation that has continued for too long.
A few people should be held accountable for giving optimism its negative moniker. Among the culprits is Voltaire’s Candide. So are Pollyanna and Shirley Temple and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Somehow the mistake has been made of associating the optimist with the activity of the fool on the hill or the labor of the wool gatherer when in fact his mere existence is itself a cause for optimism.
The pessimists of the earth, of course, gleefully point out that the world is peopled with few Cordelias and many Mrs. Robinsons. It does seem a bit unfair. History seems bent on remembering the Alexanders, who went around breaking furniture, and the Hitlers, who got the whole world up in arms. Fate should not consign the optimist to such easy obscurity.
The optimist has many things to recommend him, for the pessimist is the noisy cart and the optimist is the grease. The pessimist sees the dark at the top of the stairs; the optimist gropes for a light switch. The pessimist believes fate has cursed him; the optimist considers himself blessed. Life is a draft of hemlock for the pessimist; for the optimist it is a heady mead.
The truth is that being an optimist is hard work. The pessimist has an easy job of it, for his life’s work is merely to tear everything down. For the optimist, things are not so easy. While the pessimists are all stewing in their own sour juices, the optimist is hovering over the pot correcting the seasoning. While the pessimist declares that the time is out of joint, the optimist sets about repairing the dislocation. The pessimist focuses on the problem, the optimist on the solution.
One of the ways in which the optimist does this is by adopting the merry heart and the cheerful countenance. An optimist is easy to spot. In any random association of people, the pessimists will be grimacing; the optimists will be wearing grins. In discussion groups he will be the one pointing out that history is long periods of peace interrupted by war while the pessimist is maintaining the opposite. The difference between the optimist and the pessimist is essentially a matter of temperament, for the optimist sees life as a grand adventure, and he finds no reason to be its disagreeable traveling companion.
Among the complaints circulated about the optimist is that he does not see the world clearly, that he is out of touch with the reality principle. Much is made of the optimist and his penchant for rose-colored glasses; this is offered as evidence that he is someone too blind to read the fine print. The fact is that the optimist sees reality only too clearly; he accepts as his job the necessity of accommodating to it.
This behavior is a fitting illustration of realpolitik. If, for example, he is assigned to the night shift, he looks on it as a chance to see the stars. If he is fired from the assembly line, he looks forward to the opportunities in a nice long nap. If he sweats in summer, he commends his freedom from coats. If his portion is only a crust of bread, he is grateful for something to dip in his tea. He is anchored in reality, for he renounces regret for the might-have-been, rejoicing in what is.
Pessimists, in their grumbling way, are perpetually pointing out that the optimist suffers from lack of experience. Experience, in their view, is a taskmaster inspiring hard lessons with heavy rods. While the pessimist will spend a lifetime licking his wounds, the optimist rises from the flogging to praise his healing. The fact is that the optimist has tasted the world and found the flavors sweet. As evidence he offers the odors of night-blooming jasmine, the colors of sunset, the smell behind the baby’s ear, the existence of charity, the devotion of mothers.
Indeed, the reputation of the optimist could be restored if people would stop coining those silly bromides about him. Everyone is familiar, for example, with the homily about the optimist seeing the glass half full and the pessimist seeing it half empty. Familiar, too, is the platitude about the optimist taking the lemons life sends him and cheerfully making lemonade. Worst of all is the chestnut which says an optimist keeps his eye on the donut while the pessimist watches the hole. This is unfair, for an optimist has better things to do than hang around coffee shops.
He is a busy fellow with important work. While the pessimist is grumbling about the weather, the optimist is singing in the rain. With the umbrella of his temperament under his arm, his mission is to weather the elements, not complain of them.
