The
month of March has been designated by some person or group
(I’m not clear which)
as Optimism Month. Despite the current state of the world
and the state of our
economy, what better time of year than Spring and the coming
holidays which celebrate
re-birth and deliverance, to put on rose colored glasses?
My husband, Val, by nature
and by training as an engineer, almost always looks on the
pessimistic side. He claims it makes him feel better to
always figure in advance what might go wrong and plan for
it. When, for example, we go to the theater, Val looks for
the nearest exit and then advises me, “Honey, in case
of fire, push right and to the front… that’s
the safest way out”. I, on the other hand, assume
that usually, all will go well so why worry about what probably
will never happen? I hope that I am a realist and I certainly
recognize that things can go wrong but I also am convinced
that if you think positively, whether about people or events,
there is a positive energy that emanates from your thoughts
and helps to propel you toward a good outcome. There are
“life coaches” who help individuals give positive
affirmations to themselves. This is a statement such as
“I feel serene and at peace” which you repeat
to yourself. The messages that you give to yourself are
often a carry-over from the messages we received from our
parents when we were growing up. I was fortunate to receive
messages that made me feel loved and confident but when
I was older and became discouraged at not having equal opportunities
in the business world, my mother would remind me of how
far women had advanced. She would tell me about seeing the
suffragettes thrown into jail in London for daring to march
for women’s voting rights. She would read to me from
Charles Dickens and explain that the debtor’s prisons,
the child labor, the devastating illnesses and living conditions
that he exposed with his writings, were now things of the
past. She helped me to realize that when you contemplate
the many accomplishments of human-kind over the years, you
can’t help but be optimistic.In the current primaries,
much of the appeal of Barack Obama, is his message of hope
and his positive message of, “Yes, we can”.
Harry Truman once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty
in every opportunity while an optimist sees the opportunity
in every difficulty”.
One of the charities I try
to support is “Women for Women” which started
14 years ago in response to the impact that the Bosnian
war had on the Bosnian women. Women are helped to start
a small business, to plant a garden to feed their family,
to go to school. Most of these women have so little but
their letters are filled with gratitude and with hope. They
have suffered unspeakably but they are still optimistic.
Being an optimist does not mean that we should be un-aware
of problems and injustices. It means we need to have the
strength and courage and unshakable belief that we can help
to make things better.
I suppose in the final analysis,
as Gil Stern observed, ”Both optimists and pessimists
contribute to our society.
The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist, the
parachute.” It is necessary to have both.
Jean Cherni
is founder of Senior Living Solutions, a retirement advisory
service. Contact her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or
15 The Ponds, Branford 06405.
H. Pearce Company REALTORS®
is a full-service real estate company with more than 100
agents and branch offices in greater New Haven and the Shoreline.
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