ON OPTIMISM

What I think today will determine what I think and feel tomorrow so I can make myself happy by making my thinking more positive from now on. I must see advantages and make advantages of everything bad that happens to me and I must see that good side as the biggest and the downside as insignificant.

Positive thinking is the key to a proper perception of right and wrong behaviour and to the implementation of a code of civilized behaviour that will appeal to people and stir them to goodness. If I am happy I will not need to steal or tell unnecessary lies or to bed somebody else’s partner or to commit murder. Living a good life and being a blessing to others can be fun! It’s fun when you know how! The only rule is that the positive thinking must be firmly realistic for it will not pay to believe you will get a job that there is a thousand applicants for. That kind of positive thinking can bear bad fruit in disappointment. The kind of positive thinking you should have is that you might get the job and should get it for you are a terrific person and if you get an offer it's brilliant but if you are unsuccessful then you will learn from the experience and move on and you at least tried very well and your feelings will be fine and you will be determined to get something else.

Optimism that prevents us from working to make the world a better place is a disorder because you will feel more strongly that the world can be improved if you try to help it to improve.
 
How can we be optimists if there is no God to shower blessings on us in the future? If we love ourselves we will find that our love draws many amazing blessings to us so that we cannot be anything but trusting that the future will be good. Our philosophy of life gives us the power to change the world. Good gives birth to more good so our legacy of love will spiral into hearts that have not been born yet and will do so as long as there are people on this planet. We forget the indirect consequences of our goodness and how powerful we are and how much we should be proud of ourselves. We see only the short-term effects. Let us focus our mind’s eye and gaze into the mists of the future. We have to be either optimists or pessimists and it is certainly better to be optimistic. It feels better.
 
Do not worry about bad experiences coming your way. They will give you interest in life, they will give you something to entertain yourself by talking about them and thinking about them.
 
Not everything you do with the best intentions that goes wrong is a mistake. Other people and chance can get in the way and spoil your good plan. People who succeed have not succeeded because they were better and smarter than you but because by chance they did the right things and learned the right things at the right time. Do not see mistakes where there are none and you will learn to be understanding. Never feel inferior. It only puts you down and makes you reluctant to succeed. That is one reason why belief in God is harmful and sows the seeds of violence because he is so great and you are meant to see yourself as a worm in comparison.