Sunday, April 19, 2009
Optimism
Last night I was laying in bed trying to remember this quote, or saying, from Cameron Crowe: "Optimism is a revolutionary act." I first used it in this post from Dec. 9, 2005. I wish I were an optimist. I would even settle for being more optimistic. I really, really, really wish I were. Help me, Lord.
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3 comments:
I hate people who say, "I understand exactly what you are feeling," but I understand exactly what you are feeling.
Me, too.
There's a school of thought that believes optimism can be learned. In fact, I once read the book "Learned Optimism." And then promptly returned to my natural pessimistic self. The other school of thought believes that there are winners and losers in the "cortical lottery," and I seem to buy that line of thinking. The one that says we all have natural setpoints we return to.
To be fair, those two groups are not as mutually exclusive as I made them out to be.
Jim,
I understand exactly what you are saying about what I am saying. :)
Patti,
I tend to agree with you. And I think this describes what happens in the church for many people. We try to "learn," or even teach, behavioral change; and we can change for a time, but usually end up going back to our natural setpoints (or worse), and then we say the church doesn't work. What we often miss is the need for a "heart change" - which can only come from God (imho). That's why I phased this as a prayer, because God knows how miserably I fail at trying to be optimistic. (spoken like a true pessimist, eh?). ;)
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