Finding Silver

Nothing’s over until it’s over. There’s always the possibility something could crop up again, pop up out of the woodwork when you least expect it. I’ve tried being an optimist but it hasn’t worked out too well for me recently. Optimism doesn’t help. It can give you a good feeling going forward but it doesn’t really help. I’ve started having trouble believing things are going to get any better. Pessimism feels more realistic, more practical. Part of me still hopes things will go well but the rest of me has serious, well justified doubts.

How do you get past pessimism? That would require a bit of faith in people and the world. History has shown that everyone is fallible in some way or another, at some point or another. I’m liable to fluctuate back and forth between optimism and pessimism fairly regularly. Times when I should be optimistic I’m pessimistic. Times when I really should be a pessimist, my optimism shoves its way in.

The best I can get now is silver. Linings, that is. I’m trying to look for the good in dark situations. It’s hard to find. In fact, it’s so dark at times that I find myself wondering if I’ve even found the silver lining or if it’s just a trick of the light. False hopes causing hallucinations. I know there’s a good side to this. I might not be able to find it for a while. Heck, it might even take some interpretation just to know what good came of it.

I’m a pessimist who likes to take people at their word. It causes conflicts. My natural pessimism believes everything’s going to go wrong. When I take people at their word I believe they can do what they say and deliver what they promise. It’s why I beat myself up when people let me down. My pessimism should have doubted from the beginning but something else keeps telling me to believe people. A little ray of hope, perhaps.

I don’t doubt enough. I try to take things at face value all the time. I try to believe in people. It’s hard when I get let down, when it turns out I’ve been lied to or things have been hidden from me. The part of me that tries to trust people gets hurt. It’s battered and bruised but it still wants to believe in people. I don’t get raging mad. I don’t fly off the handle. I don’t blow up. I just get hurt. My disappointment is palpable, forcing its way into my mind. I get angry with myself for believing people. I get frustrated that I didn’t see it before, that I should have seen it. There’s nothing I can do and nothing can make it better.

I’m always going to be like this, back and forth between optimism about people and pessimism about the nature of people. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. I’ll keep looking for the best and looking for the silver lining when the worst inevitably happens. It’s part of who I am.

Optimism Pessimism

I’m a little curious about the state of things. I’m beginning to get the feeling that life’s looking up. Things seem to be improving. Life doesn’t seem as hard as it was. There seems to be more fun, more laughter, more entertainment. Am I completely deluded or are things going kind of well? Have things improved a bit or what? With a few exceptions, I think life has improved some for me. I hope it has for others. I know that my life is better now than it has been in a long time. I feel more comfortable. I feel somewhat happy.

It’s a trap, I know it.

There’s something wrong. There’s something out there, lurking in the darkness, creeping in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Something will happen. It always does. I don’t mean to be a nervous Nellie or a doubting Tomas but I just get this feeling.

I’ve always been a pessimist. I’ve always believed in the worst in the world. Sure, I have a little faith sometimes. You can’t always believe it’ll rain. But for the most part I’ve believed in the failure of the world and I’ve been right. Just when I start to be optimistic, something happens and all that optimism and good feeling gets dumped down the drain. It’s easier to believe in rain when the rain clouds loom overhead.

I’m getting along rather well. I’m not angry at the world nearly as much these days. I’m keeping it copacetic. My hope is that whatever goes wrong will go wrong in a small way in keeping with the small life changes and adjustments that have happened recently. I just hope for a little problem and not a huge, epic meltdown. That’s all. Is that so much to ask?