Ken's Response to Writing Assignment #2

Chapter 3, “Optimism and Reality” is an important one as optimism was one of Shackleton’s most noted characteristics. In addition to “You’ve damn well got to be optimistic” quoted in the text, Shackleton also once said, “Optimism is true moral courage.”

This second quotation is one that for years I have carried around in my head and try to live by. The word “moral” in this quotation suggests we have an obligation to be optimistic for the sake of those around us. This is true for me—as a teacher to my students, as a colleague to my peers, as a father to my family, as a friend to my friends. We have to believe that what we are doing is leading to something good, and, of course, such an attitude helps ensure that positive things happen. Perkins quotes Henry Ford (a famous American industrialist who started Ford Motor Company and many modern manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line): “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” (qtd. in Perkins 43). The idea here is that our attitude (optimistic or pessimistic) directly affects what actually will happen.

It is also said that optimists, on average, live approximately seven years longer than pessimists.

So being an optimist is fundamental to my approach to life.

But it takes “courage” to be optimistic, and here, sometimes, I struggle. There are times when I lose my optimism, and I am not so good at getting it back. There are times—in my marriage, in my work (there are a lot of politics in the ELP), in the direction my life is taking—in which I lose my sunny optimism and find myself instead in a very dark place. Getting myself from the dark place back to the light takes some work. One thing I tell myself is that bad times are always followed by good times, and being older I have plenty of experiences that have proven this true. Another thing that helps me is a quotation from Lance Armstrong, the great bicycle racer (seven time Tour de France winner), who says, “Turn every negative into a positive.” The idea here is that negative experiences have to be viewed as opportunities, specifically opportunities to learn—about why you might be in conflict with someone else, about what caused you to fail in some activity and what you can do to improve, about how not to repeat the same mistake, etc. Because of our text, I am also interested in Martin Seligman (cited in Perkins 43), who founded the field of “Positive psychology” and is an expert on helping people become happier. To see more about him, please check out his bio-sketch, related links, and video at TED. I hope to explore his works further.

So that is me, and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts on how to deal with difficult situations in your life.