To quote a treasured reader and an amazing writer, what do you do “when optimism feels like a luxury, or when choosing peace feels like the harder road”.

Optimism can seem a bit naive. Most of those that are wise in the ways of the world, see optimism as folly. The world, or at least many of those in it, prefer pessimism. I can’t speak to their thinking patterns, or if they even understand their own choice. Pessimism supports the status quo. It allows broken systems to continue. Thanks to pessimism a populace will respond to new ideas, or novel solutions with a resounding ‘why bother?’ which really amounts to a muted ‘no’. Optimism, on the other hand, is more than rainbows, butterflies and puppies. Optimism is counter to the status quo. It can be a threat to those who profit from the status quo. It’s never a luxury because it is what underpins our ability to grow as individuals and as a society.

When I choose to be optimistic, I choose to embrace the philosophy that my life is not predestined. I choose to believe that the future has yet to be written. The world of great ideas and new solutions has not been found,conquered and colonized, it’s mines of potential have not been played out. Optimism allows me to step forward into the unknown, recognizing that the future is not dictated solely by the past. The past is right behind us with every step we take forward.

Ask most people if they believe that the future can be foretold and you will hear one answer the most often. There are too many variables to be able to accurately predict the future on a scale of meaningful size. Our lives are not predestined in any known way at this time in history. There are too many points where paths can diverge. Since we change our choices as we learn and grow, the decisions we would have made last year to the question we are facing today will be impacted by what we’ve learned in the last year. Optimism is the recognition that we can and do have the power to change ourselves in nearly any way we choose.

Like optimism, choosing peace is seen as naive. Naysayers will conflate it to choosing peace for someone else. I can no more make my neighbor choose to be peaceful than I can make an aggressive, warring, nation state turn their swords into plowshares. One cannot enforce peace if the arguing parties refuse to embrace peaceful actions. If peace can’t be made to happen, then that says that the peace I’m referring to is a different kind of peace. I can only choose my peace. That usually means that my ego needs to sit down and shut up. Each of us have our own ego personality and it generally doesn’t care about our peace.

I spent years listening to my ego rail about how so and so wasn’t treating me right, or how so and so never listened to anything I said. Those aren’t pathways to a peaceful life, they’re calls to battle. Granted, there are people who enjoy arguments and debates but I am not one of them. Choosing peace takes the strength to confront yourself. To look in a mirror and see who you really are when nobody’s looking. Instead of deciding that so and so wasn’t treating me right, I had to analyze why I was letting it happen and if I was just being arrogant in my expectations. Choosing peace meant boundaries with my self image and with others.

Kindness is a misunderstood super power. Our power lies in our choices about how we react to life. With its joys, challenges, surprises, disappointments, fears, and desires, how we experience life can be overwhelming. First, we don’t have to accept everything that is offered for our consumption. It starts with kindness to oneself. We do not need to bathe in the water to know that water is wet.

When we do decide to react, kindness is often the least expected reaction. If someone is attempting to manipulate us, start a fight, or evince a fearful reaction, choosing kindness can disarm the situation. To be kind means that we have to step away from ego, from self-defense, from attempting to impose our viewpoint on someone else. Kindness is not being nice. Kindness is not fawning. Kindness is not capitulating. Kindness is doing what our humanity requires us to do and saying what our humanity encourages us to say without extras. It’s not loud. It’s quiet. Evil requires us to play along. It requires us to pick a side. The problem with that for us is that evil is the one telling us what the sides are and how each side should act. Kindness acts outside of evil, or rather in spite of evil. The boldness lies in the refusal to let evil decide the rules of the game.

Kindness, optimism and peace come with daily rewards. It’s been easier to walk my path as I added them to my pack. When I open my eyes and look around, I now look for ways to be kind, how to find the optimism in a situation and reminders that while the wind may blow this way and that way, my feet are still on the ground and the choice is mine if I want to let the wind cause me to stray off my path. If I choose to follow the wind and have an adventure, I can always set my feet back on my path and keep the memories. My peace is always there waiting for me to return.