I’d call myself a hoptimist…I hop between optimism and pessimism. By nature, I lean toward the sunny side and have never taken out an insurance policy on anything. But a long and eventful life has shown me that sometimes the glass really is half empty… though fortunately, you can always fill it up again.
I’ve spent much of my life putting out fires, mostly metaphorical but sometimes literal. My mother once managed to set herself alight while fitting a gas canister onto a camping stove in front of an open fire. The optimist in me is certain I’ll always manage to douse the flames, while the pessimist quietly notes that everything will be burnt to a cinder.
My father was the greatest optimist I’ve ever known. He lived according to the Micawber Principle. ‘Something will always turn up’ he used to say, breezing through life, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.
I tend to believe that life is a mirror: what you project is reflected back at you. Thus, the optimist in me always hopes for the best, while the pessimist stores huge containers of food under the stairs and lights candles to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.
My mother taught me very little, which was everything she knew, but one useful piece of advice she did impart was never let the sun go down on an argument. Not that she practised what she preached. She and my father engaged in a perpetual war over which of them had driven the other into a life of drunkenness and profligacy.
I, on the other hand, loathe arguments and rather than endure a sleepless night, I will always apologise before bedtime, invariably for something I didn’t do.
I am a lifelong teetotler, so have no hangover cure to offer, though my parents always swore by ‘a hair of the dog.’ However, I will leave you with this sound piece of advice that’s never failed me…
Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking " Optimistic or pessimistic? Which are you and why? / What's your remedy for a hangover?
The images are mine
And for those of you who read the footnotes, if you're first to guess correctly how the title of my post connects with the content, I will send you 10 SBI shares.
