Can Optimism and Misery Coexist?

March 2, 2011 - PRLog -- Today is also the LAST DAY of February.  As I stood in the shower this morning thinking about the day ahead, I said to myself:

   * Once again, February has proved itself to be the “psychologically longest” month of the year.  No matter how I try to spin it, February, to me, is a miserable month.  Frankly, it is the most miserable month of the year.  It was cold outside, grey in the sky, and snowed day after day.  I have suffered a sinus infection since the beginning of the month until today.  Do you see and feel my misery???

My next thought was:

   * How can an optimist, someone who writes about optimism everyday, have such a pessimistic thought?

My next thought was:

   * Am I being a pessimist, or can optimism and misery coexist?

I quickly found the answer to my question in three stories in the morning paper.

Story One:  Yesterday some 400 individuals leapt into an ice cold pond, in freezing outdoor temps, outside Lansing, Michigan, in order to raise money for the Special Olympics by participating in the annual “Polar Plunge” event.  Everyone said it was “sooo cccoooooolddd,” but they also said they would be back next year.  Yes, it would be hard to admit that the moment in the freezing pond is anything other than a miserable moment, but they said to a person: “We’re freezin’ for a reason.”  Hmm.  Sounds like optimism and misery coexisted.

Story Two: February is Black History month.  The front page of the Lansing State Journal had a feature article on the role the state of Michigan played in the mid 1800’s in facilitating the “Underground Railroad,”   the South to North network of individuals who risked their lives to free slaves.  Michigan was the last stop before the runaway slaves were given safe transport to Canada and freedom.  Risking life and hiding in secret basements or barns in a state of constant fear sounds like misery to me.  Ah, but it was all done for the cause of FREEDOM, and over 30,000 slaves made it to Canada and were freed.  Hmm. Sounds like misery and optimism coexisted.

Story Three: The movie, “The King’s Speech” won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.  The movie is about the misery the King of England, who became King George VI at the beginning of World War II, suffered from his stuttering disorder and the optimistic tale of how he overcame it.  Hmm.  Sounds like optimism and misery co-existed.

How many other stories can we find to demonstrate that optimism is necessary to overcome misery?  The Chilean miner story, the most positive and optimistic story of 2010, is about the misery of a group of miners trapped a half-mile below the surface of earth who overcame with optimism.  Winston Churchill’s optimistic leadership was essential to the Brits surviving the misery of the Battle of London in World War II.

The ultimate pairing of misery and optimism in the Christian religion is the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross so that humans could be saved from sin and be rewarded with “spiritual rebirth,” should they choose to accept and believe.

Optimism Tips for the Misery of Life and February

  1. Misery is a “reality,” but it does not have to be “mental reality.” Optimism is our self-determined and personally constructed “mental reality,” and the only hope against the pessimism of being absorbed into the helplessness of misery.  Imagine if the 30,000 slaves who made it to Canada and their network of helpers in the underground railroad had never tried to open the network to freedom and keep it going until the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.
  2. Optimism trumps the reality of misery when we can grasp onto a cause greater than ourselves.  The “cause” gives us a reason to endure and overcome the misery.
  3. Optimism skill and stamina are needed most in the face of miserable circumstances, but if we don’t practice the “mental reality” of optimism as we go through the moment-to-moment, daily trials and tribulations of life, we will never be ready to face “misery.”
  4. Some years ago, social psychologists concluded that “misery” only likes “miserable company.”  I call that a pity party of pessimists.  The optimists who staffed the Underground Railroad and provided King George VI with speech therapy did not allow their “charges” to wallow in misery.  They demanded effort, action, performance, and a positive attitude.
  5. I think if I had to relive the month of February over-and-over again as in the movie “Groundhog Day”  until I got it right, I would think I had died and gone to the “other place,” like some cruel twisted ending of an Alfred Hitchcock flick or episode of  Rod Serling’s, “Twilight Zone.”  Then, I think, that’s what optimism is all about, doing-it-over-and-over until you get it right.  In that case, February would no longer be my “miserable reality” but instead would have taken me to the “Promised Land.”

Go to the Optimism Blog: http://www.drrussbuss.com

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