Good evening, dear readers.
I hope you are enjoying the frenetic Christmas dash. I’m enjoying it as much as I would being shoved into an electric fence. Not overly distressing, but I could do without it, to be honest.
So, this week. Here we shall discuss optimism. Who can be bothered to be permanently positive? It must be completely exhausting. To all you determined optimists out there, I have to say: It’s OK. Everyone’s allowed a down day. We won’t think any the less of you for it. In fact, we’ll probably just appreciate you more, because you’re proving you’re actually human and not some sort of golden retriever in a person suit.
The golden retriever is allowed to be permanently optimistic; he probably has no capacity for serious future planning or the various outcomes of tiny decisions of the decisions of those around him. He worries only about food, water, walks and love (also the staples of my life, haha). He assumes life will go on exactly as it does now. He’s more of a ‘cross that bridge when you come to it’ sort of a fellow.
However, we humans know different. And we understand probabilities and complex interactions and likely outcomes and other people’s reactions and, ooh, I dunno – the FTSE 100, world poverty, gravity, space exploration and chocolate digestives.
We know that sometimes, that packet of chocolate digestives is going to be empty. Or you might know that one of your friends has a penchant for licking the chocolate off the top one and putting it back. Or you know that Brian from HR ate all the chocolate digestives and replaced them with Ryvitas. It isn’t always going to be merry. Those people who go through life believing that the chocolate digestives will always be there to be dunked in a cuppa, rather than smeared across Brian’s face, are setting themselves up for disappointment.
I am neither an optimist or a pessimist in life; I like to think I take it as it comes and work to the most likely outcome. However I have a friend, D, who used to be the most pessimistic person I’d ever met; once, we were drinking and another friend disappeared. When I asked where he’d gone, D replied, “Probably gone to throw himself off the balcony to commit suicide.” And he actually went outside to check. Now that’s a special sort of negativity. That takes dedication.
I think hope is the key. Don’t lose hope. I mean, if the packet is empty, there might be another in the cupboard. Just don’t preserve hope unnecessarily; as in, don’t moan to Brian from HR if they actually just shut down the biscuit factory.
Well that’s the most extensive metaphor I’ve ever used. Quite exhausting in itself. But there is, of course, always the chance that Brian will come in the next day with a whole carrier bag of custard creams, Bourbons, Jammy Dodgers and Hobnobs. You never know.
Yours, contentedly,
Georgie
In Other News:
A slightly gross one for you. Yesterday I was busy in the kitchen, and my Dad was mucking about in there like a naughty schoolboy. He watched me take a large gulp of water, and chose that precise moment to bonk me on the head with a metal spoon, causing me to spray that gulp of water over the entire kitchen.
My Dad’s made a few appearances here now, and will, I’m sure, make many more in the future. This is something else he’s come out with.
I had cooked a delicious stew for my family the day after I got back. Dad watched me enthusiastically clearing my plate with one eyebrow raised.
“What?” I said.
“You’ve done nothing but eat since you got here,” he said. “Might as well have a JCB parked outside, the rate you’re shovelling it in.”
Rude.
thoughtsunqualified 