The Optimist, Pessimist, and Realist

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I am an eternal optimist. I tend to see the most angelic side of even the most demonic, many times I have hoped for and expected the best despite all rational evidence, and I have even been know to go thirsty so as to never contemplate my undeniably full glass.

In fact, I was voted “most optimistic” in my high school yearbook. I didn’t go to a very imaginative school.

Optimism can be naïve, and in extreme cases outright denial, but it can also be one of your most powerful tools when it comes to sculpting your own reality. Our mind frame contributes to how life plays out, because as the law of attraction suggest, we tend to attract what we are putting our attention towards. Right? So if all those quantum physics loving-cacao munching-wheatgrass shooting hippies are right, then having an optimistic disposition will lead you to more achievement, better health, and eventually the end of world suffering.

I love the theory that all it takes is the power of intention for positivity to be manifested just as you envisioned, but so far in my life I got about a 50/50 success rate. Same as if I was just flipping coins with my life guessing heads or tails.

So for someone who is pessimistic, I am assuming life is the same for them. Half the time shit works out, half the time it doesn’t. The difference is that they don’t have to deal with the disappointment of being ummmm… disappointed. If you never expect anything to work out, then the let down isn’t as dramatic when it doesn’t. But the drawback is they live in a perpetual state of doubt. Most of life is waiting for the outcome of what we are being pessimistic or optimistic about, so if you always think things are going to suck, you may not be as let down, but you may not be the most fun person to get stuck in an elevator with either.

Then there is the realist who I suppose has all this in balance and knows that life will sometimes work out and sometimes won’t, so they are just “realisitic.” Boring! Give me the crazy excessively emotional manic over that any day!

However, at this point in my life I am thinking of switching over to the other side. The Munch is now on day 8 of her “flu” but which despite doctors telling me not longer exists, is so obviously the plague. She has hardly eaten since last Saturday, and although I usually think “runway ready” is a good look, it is a little disturbing on a baby.

But with every night of vomiting, every explosive diarrhea that leaks on my lap, every barf after a meal she barley choked down, I keep saying to myself and her “this is the last time Munch, and tomorrow you are going to feel all better.” Yet she doesn’t.

She is still miserable. Still hurling anything she tries to put in her body. Still wants to be carried every second of every day. Still moaning and crying at the world. And still creating diapers that could be used as performance art in Brooklyn.

Today she sat and cried and I cried right along with her unable to say any words of encouragement. But then I got myself together, tried to feed her some oatmeal knowing that she is going to gag it on me in the near future, and told her all about her modeling contract we are finally going to try for.

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