It’s pouring, it’s raining, might winter finally be waning? No complaints about the rain from this corner. Better than snow. Way better than snow. It’s been cold and damp but there was something delightful about waking up up yesterday morning to the sound of rain spattering against the roof and watching throughout the day as the cat and dog downpours reduced the mountain of snow beside the driveway from Kilimanjaro status to a small gritty island littered with last year’s unraked leaves.
Would that this downpour could wash away the pervasive doom clinging like cobwebs to the national consciousness. Dour begets dour, doing no one the least bit of good. My yoga teacher offered up the term “intelligent optimism” in class this week. I took a shine to the phrase right away. Intelligent optimism isn’t hiding one’s head in the sand and ignoring the avalanche of crises tumbling about us. And it’s not reacting with mindless platitudes in the face of real tragedies.
Facing adversity with intelligent optimism means taking note of the inescapable economic realities swirling around us and choosing not to get swept up in the maelstrom. Intelligent optimism finds something in each day to celebrate, something to be grateful for; it acts upon the opportunity, however small, to offer a helping hand or a kind word.
Intelligent optimism waits out the cold and slashing rain, confident that one day spring will return again.
I love your spin on intelligent optimism, including the quotes you left on my blog too. I hadn’t heard the term until you wrote about it, but I believe it’s just what the doctor would order today. And oh, I love the photo of the jazzy boots with this post. Would love to see you splashing around in puddles, wearing those! 🙂
I love wearing my high rubber boots — basic black. Bring on the puddles! I am fearless of weather when properly attired. Now to get better attired in that intelligent optimism.
Yeah, intelligent optimism is Michigan layering, whatever style, and walking through the doom and gloom, thankful the joints still work, the heart still beats and the brain still remembers how to do it all.
Thanks for the reminder, Debra.
I’m embracing it! There are too many reminders that being stuck in doom and gloom are wasted moments.
Intelligent optimism is the difference between jumping out of bed, fighting the traffic to work, doing your best to help your clients succeed and in return help you company to succeed as opposed to turning off the alarm, pulling the covers over your head and going back to sleep .
Folks just don’t complain about the cold of winter or the bone chilling rains in the fall. They complain about the heat of the summer and the humidity by the ocean. With every challenge there is opportunity and with every opportunity there is a chance, albiet small in some cases, to succeed. intelligent optimism is that chance. Lets not waste it.
Intelligent optimism: just what I needed to hear this morning. Thank you!
Just what I needed to read this morning. Thank you.
I am in love with the idea of intelligent optimism. And I want a pair of those boots!
THANK YOU ALL for your comments and your instant kinship with the concept of intelligent optimism.
As for the boots….got them in Estonia this past summer. Long way to go for rainboots, I know. Everyone else was buying amber, handmade scarves and sweaters and T-shirts that said, “Ma pean oma eesti keelt harjutama,” yours truly went for a pair of vihmasaapad.