Realist or Optimist...?

written by: Pamela (Pam) Scholes


       So, which is shall we be? Shall we be realist or should we be optimist? The two almost collide by definition. My question really is, why do we have to choose one over the other when, tough as it may be, we can be both? That's exactly right , we can be both and a dose of each is important. Keeping up with a daily dose of reality is often hard when you look around you and see the struggles everywhere and the endless list of things that are just wrong. It is tough to see light through so much darkness. But that is life and it doesn't get anymore real than that and accepting those factors makes part of you a realist...seeing things just as they are, bare and without mask.
        But, every coin has two sides and this one deserves no exclusion. Optimism, of course, is always being able to manage to see the sun through the clouds and believe in the positive no matter what. This is a grand virtue to have and a tough one to practice for the load in holding faith can sometimes be heavy. Optimist and realist aren't so very different. You look at a flower in the fall and see that it has died for the winter-that is being a realist for it is a fact. The other side of you will whisper and tell you that the flower will bloom again in the spring and that is you being the optimist. We take what we have around us for exactly what it is while all the time holding on to the hope of the good in things. It takes some juggling but you do not have to choose between being a realist or an optimist...