In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “If we compare our own time with the past, we find in modern statistics a solid foundation for a confident and buoyant world-optimism. Beneath the doubt, the unrest, the materialism, which surround us still glows and burns at the world’s best life a steadfast faith. To hear the pessimist, one would think civilization had bivouacked in the Middle Ages, and had not had marching orders since. He does not realize that the progress of evolution is not an uninterrupted march.”. P. 27
NOTE: Helen Keller’s essay, Optimism, was written in 1903 and published in 1904, well over a hundred years ago. Yet, in reading this passage it feels as if it is describing our current circumstances. The passage should give one hope that the struggles of today will be conquered. We will grow stronger to face a new set of challenges in the future. Yet, we should have no doubt that the human spirit will survive and thrive and that good will ultimately prevail.
In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller discusses how she uses her optimism to transform the absence of good, “Thus my optimism is grounded in two worlds, myself and what is about me. I demand that the world be good, and lo, it obeys. I proclaim the world good, and facts range themselves to prove my proclamation overwhelmingly true. To what is good I open the doors of my being, and jealously shut them against what is bad. Such is the force of this beautiful and willful conviction, it carries itself in the face of all opposition. I am never discouraged by absence of good. I never can be argued into hopelessness. Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.” Pp 12-13
NOTE: A true optimist doesn’t deny suffering or evil. The true optimist, like Helen Keller, has a firm belief that good will eventually triumph over evil, love will always win, and that hope fuels the ride into the future. An optimist is a transformative agent who seeks ways to remedy negative situations and turn them into positive outcomes. Being a true optimist requires hard work and involvement in life. Optimist you will transform our world. Never lose hope.
In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “With the first word, I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to help. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it. P. 10
NOTE: Some years ago, I was beginning a new job with great responsibility. Shortly after I began working one of the people who reported to me (he had been in his position for many years) came to me and said, “Ray, you have five daughters and a wife. This job will kill you. You should quit. He left me and I was at a loss for words. I called my wife and told her what happened. She simply said, “You can do this.” That’s all I needed, a word of encouragement from the one I most trusted. I did do it and I did it well. One word of encouragement is all most of us need to open the door to the talent we already have. There is someone in your life who needs a word of encouragement, offer it and you will make all the difference.
—Donald E. Williams
Source: PassItOn.com
