POSITIVITY
Today as I was getting depressed about the world we live in and dwelling on pessimism and optimism I asked myself what the difference is. I concluded that:
An optimist is someone who has sinned all his life but starts taking harp lessons in his old age.
A pessimist is someone who is presented with the choice of two calamities always takes both.
You usually don’t get much comfort from politicians, but I then turned my thoughts to one who was a bit different and I thought I should share it with friends a relatives, in case they are feeling a bit down.
Mike Kenavan
It’s a nice story about a President who seemed like a genuinely nice bloke and I refer to Ronald Reagon.
When he was first elected President the Whitehouse arranged a function for him to meet the Congressmen and Senators. At the start of the function he appeared behind the microphone, leaning forward on the lectern with everyone expecting a typical politician’s speech.
He started by saying that he was an optimist and that his country could get back to the good times and then said, “I am going to tell you a story about optimism before I declare what I intend doing.”
These parents were blessed with twin boys but as they began to walk and talk the mother and father began to notice that one was becoming a pessimist while the other was always looking on the bright side. This presented a problem around suitable gifts on their birthday – something that might lift the spirits of one and perhaps dampen the over exuberance of the other.
They had a large house so they decided to fill one empty room with some wonderful toys to brighten up the pessimist and to put a load of horse manure in the other to bring the other back to the reality of sometime disappointment.
They dispatched the boys to the respective rooms and waited an hour before inspecting the results of their experiment.
At first, they went to the room with the toys and there they found the first twin crying and when asked why he said, “This toy isn’t going to last, this toy won’t work when it runs out of batteries and this toy is going to be stolen along with a lot of other negative comments.”
Sullen-faced they went into the adjoining room to see how the other little boy was getting on. On opening the door, they saw this smiling face digging his way through the pile of horse manure with his cupped hands. Surprised they said, “Son, what on earth are you doing that for?”
He said, “I’m looking for the pony.”
And the President said, “That’s what I’m going to do, look for the pony.”
