The Power of Practiced Optimism

Amidst the chaotic crowd of a holiday-busy Barnes and Nobles, I searched for a book for a grumpy friend of mine from the self-help discount shelf. Instantly, my eyes fell upon a title called A Complaint-Free World. I didn't even crack the first page open. Just grabbed the book. It was on sale, for something not all that much less than the original price, but I took stock in it, because I believe in the benefit of living complaint-free. Half-way home, while skimming through the first few words, I immediately decided to keep the book for myself. I knew my grumpy friend was never going to read it. It would read too "sunny" for her, and she would never change her life enough to accept that things can actually turn good just because you really want them to. I have an issue with complainers. They give me ulcers, and create this uncontrollable urge in optimistic me to help them "see the light" of living in faith. But I am wholly convinced that pessimists enjoy believing in the darkness of failure. At least it is consistent, they reason. They fail to realize that optimism is just as capable of creating positive results as their "woe is me" attitude is of creating a series of never-ending regrets.

"Your thoughts create your world and your words indicate your thoughts."A Complaint Free World.

When I was a six year old child, my father gave me a half dollar and told me to pick out any book I wanted from a used bookstore our Greyhound Bus had stopped at while en route to North Bend, Oregon. I chose a grossly over-sized, beat-up picture book of Russian fairy tales. I made my father read the entire thing to me several times before we reached our destination.

"Daddy, I am going to Russia when I grow up."

"Okay," he said, completely entranced in the view outside the window, my first grade goal not something he was making much note of.

By age 16, I was traveling around the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, living mostly in Siberia as a missionary and a student, during the summer of the '91 Coup. No one had taken my vow seriously, but I did, and somehow, the opportunity came to me and I grabbed at it before it could pass me by. On the way over, our Aeroflot plane unexpectedly stopped in Ireland, the other place I had promised myself I would visit - even if only in the airport. I later wished I had vowed a little deeper, maybe to hang out there for, at least, a week.

I told my mother, upon returning from Russia, that I would get married by the time I was 21 years old to the absolute love of my life. I met him two years later. Didn't like him at first, but knew, when I reluctantly attended a new church for the first time with my mother on a Wednesday night, that I would be married there. That I would meet my husband there. He was the first person to enter the sanctuary after me. We were the only two people in the entire room. We made eye contact, and I knew for sure, in two years, I would be married there. He was practically engaged to someone else. It took him a good six months, or more, to give me a second glance, but when he did, we became inseparable. The other girl ran off with another, and we married nine months later, eight days before my 21st birthday. We celebrate 13 years of marriage this July. He is my best friend, my most-compatible pal, my first and only love, the father of my four children, and the only good reason I have remained on the East Coast for more than 15 years. He is just what my college pal's grandmother said of her deceased husband of 40-something years, "He is the kindest man I have ever met."

I always knew that my first child would be named after my father, that I would live in a house with 1/2 acre of land surrounded by forest I could actually afford, and that I would live in the small town I had never known. Having grown up just north of Los Angeles, I used to believe small towns no longer existed in America, but if they did, I knew what type I wanted. My town, named after an Indian athlete from Oklahoma (state of my birth), has a population of less than 5,000. It is a place most Americans, indeed most of the world, has never heard of. And never will. But it's home, and partly, because I prayed it, dreamed it, thought it so, and did not give up when it seemed that my husband and I would never be able to pay our bills, never own our own home (we have now owned two), never get out of debt (something achieved by the time I turned 30 - and this after owing more than $60,000 in medical bills to a sudden illness). Even when negative things crept momentarily into my heart, my mind, I had long-practiced replacing what seemed like the absolute "end" with the belief that "all things work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to His purpose," Romans 8:28.

"If you don't like something change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." Maya Angelou

Since the first time I heard the words, "You have a disease called Guillian Barre Syndrome," I knew that my life would never be the same, that I might not be able to complete college in one direct swoop, or that my energy might wane a bit every now and then. But I never doubted my healing from the disease, my ability to learn how to walk again once paralyzed. I healed faster than most do from the rare disease, and I shocked my neurologist with the speed of my recovery. It may have knocked me down, it may occasionally still do it, but I have life and I live without letting a disease tell me what I can do, where I can go, who I can love. I had four children, all after the disease came and went. I was told never to attempt more than one, because I would not have the strength to care for them. My family is my muse. Without them, I would write slop.

And that brings me to another six year old goal I had...to be a writer.

No matter the amount of rejections, I never gave up. I have been published in Pennsylvania Magazine, St. Anthony Messenger, Canticle Magazine, Catholic Planet, Country Discoveries Magazine, and I created and edit Nicean Magazine - a literary spiritual e-zine. I published my first novel, Budapest, and founded the first Catholic literary press on the East Coast just one month after a neurologist told me that I would never be able to walk without assistance, or do anything more than "take it easy" for the rest of my life. I am disabled, but I hardly "take it easy" or have let others tell me how to relegate my dreams so I could fade away to neurological dysfunction. In fact, here at AC, I recounted the ordeal of my illness and encouraged others to keep living, keep searching out a doctor who believes in you, no matter how long it takes. Your dreams matter. Your attitude is what will make a concrete manifestation of those dreams.

I do not credit myself with my success. I believe strongly in a loving and merciful God. But I believe just as strongly that He leaves those alone who would rather not know blessing. There is a strange myth that it is easier to live a life of self-pity, that feeling sorry for oneself will draw others and dreams closer to the sufferer. Not so. No one likes a whiner. Whiners end up alone. No one is drawn to them with any sort of affection. Whining brings greater stress, greater stress leads to greater fumbling. Nothing goes right from there on out.

"Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance. " The Secret

I recently heard a movie critic call The Secret one of the most ridiculous books he had ever read. I doubt he actually sat through more than a few seconds of the book. I have a strong hunch that he read the words of power and decided that they were too difficult for him, so he dropped the book and added it to his own - a collection of what he believes to be some of the dumbest ideas in existence. He claims to be a man of faith, but what faith? Catholicism, naturally. The very faith I live each day. And he finds the strength to get up, go to Mass, and believe that blood and wine have become the actual Body and Blood of Christ? How? Doesn't this sound ridiculous to him as well? But the Holy Eucharist probably seems more believable to him than an idea that suggests he should believe in personal responsibility for his own life circumstances.

We cannot control whether or not bad things happen in the world, but we can so very easily control how we react to bad circumstances and this practiced optimism opens up a such a profoundly infinite well of opportunity for happiness and success that its truth can often seem absurd. But it's not absurd. It's truth. The "way out" may seem physically, spiritually, intellectually, monetarily impossible, but it does not have to be.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

"Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm," Winston Churchill. Spoken after the bombing of London when so many did not see a winning end to WWII. Thank God the world had a believer in their midst, a man who knew when to embrace optimism - when there seemed no other intelligent option.

Optimism - an inclination to expect...the best possible outcome. Merriam-Websters Dictionary

Successfully, optimistic examples:

"My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of... individuals..." Gandhi

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop," Blessed Mother Teresa

"It is very important to cross the threshold of hope, not to stop before it, but to let oneself be led - Pope John Paul II from his book "Crossing the Threshold of hope," Pope John Paul the Great, from Crossing the Threshold of Hope.

"One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. " Lucille Ball

"What we can borrow from Ronald Reagan... is that great sense of optimism. He led by building on the strengths of America, not running America down."
Rudy Giuliani

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."
Helen Keller

Practice it. Watch your life change today, in just the way you approach being stuck in traffic. Plan not be stuck. And then pass it on. Pass on the truth, and thus, the power of practiced optimism.