Skip to main content

Preponing Optimism



The world we live in is not the most fertile of grounds for optimism. If the day to day problems were not bad enough, the media has done an excellent job at painting a picture of dystopia and then promoting the very practises of materialism and self-consciousness that has propelled our journey to it. Along the way, certain acts of unexpected generosity (and some 9gag videos) restores our faith in humanity, albeit temporarily, for for every good man, there are 9 idiots, and for every neurone joint we allocate in our brain for remembering the good stuff, we allocate 9 for the bad stuff.  

And in the middle of all this, we go by our daily lives, where problems pile up one after the other and the end is as hard to see as someone looking contented on the MRT. We scroll through the list of holiday destinations we can go next to escape from the stale, unchanging present and we loathe every moment when we make our way back home from a refreshing holiday. Next thing to look forward to this year would be the bonus and hopefully the economy picks up, which seems unlikely because the manufacturing output has dipped by x% and blah blah. Maybe it would be cheaper to get married now, only if at least one of the hundred random strangers we 'liked' to on Tinder replied (and did not come across as a wierdo).

The point is, this world is a breeding ground for the twin evils of pessimism and cynicism, and rightfully so. However, as I have found out lately, such an attitude is always a hindrance to our enjoyment of the present, mainly because it tends to exaggerate the problems we are deluded with. The problems exist, no doubt, but to see it objectively as it is, requires a far more difficult choice to be made on how we want to lead our lives. By choosing to be optimistic, the problems are almost always easier to solve for we are in a better state of mind to solve it. We should choose to be optimistic, not because it makes us happy, but because it will ultimately benefit us. And this choice should not be delayed until we face the problem, but way before we face it.

The idea is there. The implementation, as I am discovering, is always the hard part. 

(So much for being optimistic)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Fool's Pride

I was rolling up the sleeve of my uniform, preparing for a call up that might never come, when I realised that somehow I was overcome by a strange sense of pride, a pride that wanted the length of my sleeve to be precise as I have always pictured in my mind. Any longer, I would look shabby. Any shorter, I would look amateur. Then I donned the green, tightened the velcro around my waist and looked in the mirror. It was just like before and the memories started flooding me. I never really liked it when I donned it for 2 years in a row. Then I was in a place where I detested the culture, the harsh discipline, the unreasonable demands and the lack of purpose in everything I did. But now that it was over, when I look back, it was perhaps the greatest time of my life. The suffering, the digging, the starving, the cold, the banter, the rowdiness, the jungle, the marches,the mountains, the food, the stories, the friendships, it was all worth the 2 years. A girl friend of mine once asked...
2 comments
Read more

Marriage and All That : Part 2

"How about I get married?" "Are you serious?" "Yea" "No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one" "Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding" After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home. Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the ...
2 comments
Read more

6:15 on Hardy Toll

My left hand lies curled in a tight fist between my thighs, while the right presses stiffly against the coarse leather of the steering wheel, bearing the burden of the task. Though to call it a burden would be an overstatement of an activity that once gave me a sleepless 23 hour flight but now bordered on mindlessness. Now, being on the that road, at that time, when even the sun was too lazy to rise from its sleep, was second nature to me. Thoughts raced through my mind, thoughts about the destination I was headed to. The bulk of them recollected old frustrations and the remainder imagined new ones. My left fist curl tighter as I sped ahead in the air conditioned cocoon. I try to keep to the right of the two lanes as I drove, quasi subconsciously,  at 60 miles per hour on a a 65 mile per hour lane, which still had an additional legally tolerable 10 mile per hour buffer. Lost in my unending imaginings, I stay at that speed until an even slower traveler in front jerk me i...
1 comment
Read more