Almost Optimistic

My world as of late has been comprised mostly of failures, so you can imagine my delight today when I quite unexpectedly had a success.  Now, this success was not life changing or ground breaking, but nevertheless it was a success.  I'm quite aware that I have used the word success four times since beginning this post, but I just don't want anyone to forget that I, in fact, had a success.  Today, I successfully made gluten free sugar cookies that look and taste nearly identical to my regular sugar cookies.  I was so sure they would be a failure that I made an extra batch of the regular so my family would at least have something to decorate. 

This now brings me to my point.  Why do I anticipate failure?  Well, in this instance probably because of my recent record in the areas of family, friends, decorating, pet care taking, education, cooking, & all around living.  But lets not dwell on that.  Let's instead focus on why even in my 'better' seasons I worry about not being up to par.  I could be simplistic about it all and say it's in my nature, that I am a half empty kind of person.  But, really I'm almost an optimist. Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, being an 'almost optimist' does not make me a pessimist. 

Almost optimists like to look at the bright side of things and are even quite cheerful at times, but we have a bit more reality embedded within us than your average optimist.  You see, we know that life won't always work out and that things both good and bad happen in seasons.  We have a built in graph that helps us see the chance of something failing based on previously stored data.  We also realize that success and failure are probabilities, not guaranteed outcomes.  When our internal data shows that we are in a 'bad' season, we, like any other optimist, move forward with plans and ideas.  However, we don't ignore the probability of failure and plan accordingly.  I dare any psychologist to counter this logic that is based in rational thought, not negative energy.  So the next time you plan for failure, ask yourself if you are being a pessimist or an almost optimist.  If your answer is the latter, then I say all is well and carry on. You can always use the extra dough in the refrigerator to make cookies for your gluten tolerant friends and non tolerant enemies.