may the odds be ever in your favor (quote used with sarcasm)

[enamoured]

I've been thinking about optimism this week.

I generally think of myself as an optimistic person, but more cautiously optimistic than anything else. I think I've come to believe that I choose to be optimistic because I feel like if I don't try to see the good in life and hope for the best then I'm going to be constantly faced with disappointment and misery, and I wonder if that's just a coping mechanism or if I actually do feel that keeping my fingers crossed and being kind to (most) people will make life the tiniest bit better.

Sometimes I feel like I lean on optimism because if I don't, I will constantly tell myself that nothing good's going to happen to me. I do that with interactions with guys that I like: Oh, he laughed at something I said, that's good! Or when I enter a contest or try to win something: I've gotten my entry in, that's gotten me one step closer to possibly winning! But I always try to keep myself from imagining what will happen if things go right, because I feel like that would jinx my chances.

Or maybe it's because deep down I really do believe that when you have nothing, you've got nothing to lose so why not hope for the best? It's like that line from The Shawshank Redemption: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

Comments

[library-of-sex.livejournal.com]

I think it's a good thing to be cautiously optimistic! A poitive outlook certainly beats a negative one (though I'm one to talk being such a pessimist), but on the other hand, you're also realistic. You accept that something may not turn out exactly as you want, but there can still be some good going on!