On Optimism.

I have always been a glass half full kinda guy. When all around people are heading for the exits, I remain rooted to my seat ever hopeful that my team will mount a meteoric recovery and score five goals in the last minute of the game. I can’t help it. It’s who I am. Some may say that I am continually setting myself up for disappointment, always dangling a carrot of hope where only a fool would choose. The beauty of being an optimist, however, is that we don’t tend to dwell on disappointment for long and are always looking forward. One of my favourite cartoons in fact shows a headless guy sitting up in his hospital bed. A visitor sitting as his side and is telling him ‘Cheer up; things will look up in a few days’. I smile every time I see that cartoon. It centres me; it reminds me that life goes on.

This past Christmas I received a truly wonderful and unexpected gift from my sister. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, she had arranged for cine camera film from our early childhood to be transferred to DVD and had sent each of us a copy. I have always had very fond memories of these films and to now have the ability to share them with my boys was just amazing. Zack and Logan loved the movies. They laughed at the antics of their four year old Dad, had plenty of questions about life in the olden days and often confused their grandfather at age 30 with their ‘old man’ of today. They saw the films as I had seen them when I was growing up. But I’m all grown up now and for the first time I was able to see the story behind the story. I saw a father totally engaged with his children. I saw a mother who made mothering look easy. I saw a young couple so much in love. I saw a safe and happy childhood.

I grew up in a working class family where money was tight…..sometimes very tight. With four children and one income luxuries were few and far between. We never felt like we went without though. We went to the beach, we went to the Zoo, and we even went to London to see the Queen. We did family stuff. Sure we had our fights and I am probably guilty of looking at the past through rose tinted glasses. I make no apologies though, because my parents gave me and my siblings what so many today are denied. They gave us a stable and consistent base to grow from. They gave us love, constant love. They made sacrifices, willingly. They protected us from the ills of the world and they allowed us to grow up embracing and not fearing the World. In short, they provided us with a springboard to optimism, the ability to look for the opportunity and not fear the consequence. Now that is a gift I hope I can give to my children.