COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

Jun 01, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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If you customarily leap out of bed in the morning with a cheerful “Good morning God” you’re an optimist. If instead you wake up and complain, “Good God, morning?” you’re a pessimist.

However, the good news is that there are more optimists than pessimists. Science Daily, citing a new study from the University of Kansas and the Gallup polling organization, reports that despite calamities ranging from economic recessions, wars and famine to a flu epidemic afflicting the Earth, humans are by nature optimistic.

The report stated that the study was based on data from a Gallup World Poll of 150,000 adults in more than 140 countries providing a representative sample of 95 percent of the world’s population. The study found that eighty-nine percent of individuals worldwide, expect the next five years to be as good as, or better than, their current life, and 95 percent of individuals expected their life in five years to be as good or better than their life was five years ago.

The world’s greatest optimists (according to the study) are to be found in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark and New Zealand. The United States, even with Barack Obama as President, ranks No. 10. The least optimistic are to be found in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria. Interestingly, factors like age and income appear to have only a negligible impact on a person’s optimism.

If you’re not sure how to tell the difference between an optimist and a pessimist, perhaps this story from an anonymous source will help. An optimist sees the best in the world, while a pessimist sees only the worst. An optimist finds the positive in the negative, and a pessimist can only find the negative in the positive.

For example, an avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him. He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, a pessimist by nature, and invited him to hunt with him and his new dog. As they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. They fired and a duck fell. The dog responded and jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet.

This continued all day long; each time a duck fell, the dog walked across the surface of the water to retrieve it. The pessimist watched carefully, saw everything, but did not say a single word. On the drive home, the hunter asked his friend, “Did you notice anything unusual about my new dog?” “I sure did,” responded the pessimist. “Your dog can’t swim!”

Here’s another story that is apt. Frank always looked on the bright side. He would constantly irritate his friends with his eternal optimism. No matter how horrible the circumstance, he would always reply, “Well, it could have been worse.” To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a situation so completely bad, so terrible, that even Frank could find no hope in it.

On the golf course one day, one of them said, “Frank, did you hear about Tom? He came home last night, found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both and then turned the gun on himself!”

“That’s awful, said Frank, “But it could have been worse.” “How in hell,” asked his bewildered friend, “could it have been worse?” “Well,” replied Frank, “if it had happened the night before, I’d be dead now!”

Genuine optimism is not just a product of jokes, but distinguishes many great achievers. According to anecodotage.com (one of the sources for this and other examples of great optimists), in 1735, the French Academy offered a prize for the solution to a certain astronomical problem.

The problem was deemed so difficult, that many mathematicians expected several months to pass before an answer was produced. Leonhard Euler was not among them. Having become obsessed with the problem, he worked continually for three days, produced a solution, and won the prize.

Unfortunately, poor working conditions and intense stress, led to the loss of one of his eyes. Though still in his twenties, however, Euler took the loss in stride: “Now,” he declared undaunted, “I will have fewer distractions!”

In 1910, Mahatma Gandhi was sent to prison by South African Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, for leading a passive resistance campaign opposing discrimination against Indians in Transvaal. From his jail in Bloemfontein, Gandhi sent Smuts a letter offering his “sincere regards.” “The prospect of uninterrupted study for at least a year,” he declared, “fills me with joy.”

The story of hymn-writer, Fanny Crosby, is particularly inspiring. Even though she was blinded by an illness at the age of six weeks, Fanny, who composed more than 6,000 gospel songs, was never bitter. A sympathetic preacher once remarked that it was a pity God had not given her sight when He had given her so many other gifts.

“Do you know,” she remarked, “that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?” “Why?” the clergyman asked. “Because,” Crosby replied, “when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!”

I am a perennial and perpetual optimist. I wake up every morning, wondering what the day would bring ,and even though my experience tells me that bad news is inevitable, I still expect only good things to happen. I go to sleep at night and put the day behind me, focusing only on the good news and the lessons I learnt.

I try to do what Lao Tzu, the great Chinese philosopher advised, “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success.

Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” I take my cue from the great artist, Pablo Picasso. When asked which of his many paintings was his favorite, he replied, “The next one.”

*Tony Deyal was last seen agreeing with Robert Brault that the world’s greatest optimist was the person who invented the lead pencil. The pencil is seven inches long but the eraser is only half-an-inch.

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