Optimism Takes Guts

Optimism is not for the faint of heart. It may look like life dressed in tulle, one grand plié across your grandmother’s guestroom; it may seem all pink and fizzy and innocent; but more often than not it’s a girl at a barre with a shot glass full of blisters.

Skepticism is easy. Apathy is easy. Road rage is easy. Waking up and hating your job, that pile of bills, CNN, Fox, bullies, the IRS, homophobes, racists, rich people, Nickleback – all of that is easy. But coming face to face with a world that smells like Kardashian-ass and still believing? That takes guts.

Optimism takes guts. Hardcore, feel-the-bern, guts. It takes guts to stand up for the truly marginalized in this world: possibility, hope, change and the next generation. And because we haven’t found an adequate shared language for it, it’s not easy to speak on behalf of the glass-half-full without sounding like you have a brain-half-empty. But in fact, optimism is not naïve. It’s hard won.

Optimism moves against the tide of darkness — but the reason it can, I think, is because it was born there. It is born from a backstage story and has to feel its way to light, to arrive front and center just where it’s needed most; in a voting booth, in poverty, in prayer; in the collective conscious of an apathetic audience.

And while it doesn’t always look tough, optimism fights hard. So yeah — you may find it wandering around Mr. Roger’s neighborhood wearing a sweater. But it puts its sneakers on every, single, day. It shows up, it goes out in the world, it says good morning. And if that’s not fighting, I don’t know what the hell is. Just because you don’t hear about it on the nightly news, make no mistake. It’s not trapped on the Oprah channel wearing pink tights. Optimism is out there carrying a pitchfork and torch long after all the other villagers have gone home to watch the Sound of Music.

Optimism shows up, with or without an audience. Day after day with its blisters and barres, it shows up and stays on pointe. It’s where activism lives, where hope comes for lessons, where change comes true. And while others swan dive toward despair, optimism fights for balance, stands on tippy toes, reaches, and arches across a darkened stage to remind us why we live.