Sir Adolphus William Ward, an eminent historian and man of letters, once wrote, "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes that it will turn, the realist hoists the sails."
Which is a clever aphorism to illustrate the differences between pessimists, optimists and realists. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a born optimist, and proud of it. Yet Ward's words have made me wonder whether I am sometimes ridiculously naive - whether all optimists are.
Because all the hope in the world will not help any particular situation. Change for the better will only happen when our hope is translated into a firm plan to do something about whatever is bothering us. So the fierce practicality of the realist is perhaps something I should cultivate more. I can see that there is little point in being optimistic about the future, unless we are prepared to buckle down and do our bit to make it so. All the optimism in the world won't change that world. Only concrete actions can do that.
Yet I also believe that realists (who can often be quite pessimistic in their outlook, because they see things as they are, and there is so much to grieve about in the world today) might also take a leaf out of the optimists' book. The leaf of hope, the belief that something can be done. The belief that the world can change if we work at it hard enough.
A combination of optimism (so that we believe in the possibility of a better future) and realism (so that we are prepared channel that hope into action) is perhaps the best course to adopt.
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