It doesn’t hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later.
Lucimar Santos de Lima
Life is a roller-coaster ride; it is full of ups and down. While failures are part and parcel of life, some failures tend to thrust us into the jaws of defeatism. We begin to feel that no matter what we do, how hard we try, it will all come to nothing. We become doubtful of our own abilities. We are constantly hounded by a myriad of negative thoughts and apprehensions about our future. As a result of all this pent-up negativity, we fall prey to a vicious pessimism. Before we know it, we have been so badly bogged down in this morass of gloom and cynicism that there is hardly a way out. It is almost as if our vision gets so blinded by the clouds of pessimism that the rays of hope cannot find a way past them.
However, hope is the belief that we can rise above all odds and make something happen. While it can manifest itself in different ways, it always starts off as a tiny spark of self-belief. We begin to appreciate the importance of living in the present, with our past failures behind us and our future opportunities ahead of us. That is when things start looking a lot better, a lot more hopeful than when we had nothing much to look forward to.
Like we said, failures are as much part of our lives as success is. Failing once does not mean that we will always keep failing. In the same way, failing today does not mean that we might never fail again. However, being optimistic helps in that we plan better for the future and are more prepared to grab our chances. Sure, things can go wrong, but at least we give ourselves a shot at setting them right by going ahead with a positive mindset. The following quote by Lucimar Santos de Lima is quite relevant in this context: “It doesn’t hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later.”