Ephemeral Certitudes
Optimism. Even just stating it feels risky, like it might, without warning, slide off the page and leave an empty vacuum of indifference, if not despair, in its wake. In the Do Good nonprofit sector, optimism tends to last as long as the cash reserve. Pessimism is safer, more solid and assured. Which isn't to say the two don't often rub shoulders and toy with coexistence. "How do you sell new ideas?" I was recently asked. Having my enthusiasm about a potential new concept extinguished by another's doubt or indifference is a vocational hazard. Comfort zones tend to be more constrained than they're professed or aspired to be. However I might couch it, risk is unsettling, although essential to innovation and progress. I need at least a quotient of daily optimism. The mornings I awake and notice my reserve is empty are the hardest. I don't know how to conjure it except in relation with others. It is fundamentally a collaborative brew. To have any hope of inflecting systems or starting new ventures, I must begin by believing I can, whether true or not. Both experience and inexperience can be the devil, extinguishing the potential of possibility with either naiveté-centered doubt, or mopey, firsthand knowledge of difficulty and failure. Optimism defiantly exists not because of either these binary factors, but in spite of them, like an impossible mirage. I wish it weren't so seemingly fickle, that I could subdue its indifference and hoard it. But it doesn't care, and responds to its apparent own forces, leaving me engaged and motivated, or else rolling over in bed wishing for another, brighter day.
