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2021: Creating a Lexicon of Future
O is for Optimism
My dad was born in 1931, into working class poverty in Scotland. He and his parents ended up in London in time for the German bombing blitz in 1940 and he was sent away from home out to the country along with all the other children. Despite this rough beginning, he remained an optimist till the day he died in 2009.
A natural punster, he found a way to express his optimism in his optometric practice using the personal motto “It’s hard to be optimistic when you have a misty optic” to explain how much better the world would look to his patients after they got the right prescription.
Optimism is both a philosophy and an attitude. It’s a philosophy in how we interpret the events that happen in our everyday life. It’s an attitude in how we carry ourselves forward. It’s a way of life — a perspective or a lens through which to evaluate desirable and undesirable events as they unfold in our day-to-day. ~ Omar Itani
I don’t know if optimism can be an inherited trait, but it’s definitely something I learned from my dad. The good news, is that you can strengthen your own optimism practicing the principles illustrated above and detailed below:
How do you become an optimist?
You practice the seven principles of optimism:
