“Strategic Optimism is not about ignoring the limitations, risks, or harms that do exist; in fact, it’s about acknowledging the full reality of the current situation and the full range of possible outcomes, mitigating the worst outcomes, and working diligently toward achieving the best.”
Source: A Future So Bright: How Strategic Optimism and Meaningful Innovation Can Restore Our Humanity and Save the World
“Can we do a better job of solving the problems that humanity faces if we behave as though—not wondering if—we can?”
Source: A Future So Bright: How Strategic Optimism and Meaningful Innovation Can Restore Our Humanity and Save the World
“But there’s a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe’a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, ‘I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”
Source: Looking for Alaska
“Children have a remarkable ability to focus only on the good, and my child was no exception.”
Source: Rewriting My Happily Ever After: A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery
“The truth is, I was never a nihilist at all. I just wore nihilism like a shield to protect my unrelenting tragic optimism.”
Source: Heaven and Hurricanes
“You don't just love a person, you love a vision of your life with them.”
Source: Great Circle
“It felt important to acknowledge our small successes, to stop and observe the tiny pockets of sunshine that broke up the boredom of our monochrome days and made us smile.”
Source: Rewriting My Happily Ever After: A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery
“Behavioral trainers never talk about vices and depravity. Behaviorists are some of the most "optimistic' teachers and trainers there are, because if a person or an animal isn't learning, a behaviorist is trained to examine what "he" is doing wrong, not what the person or animal is doing wrong. This means that behavioral teachers and trainers don't blame the student.”
Source: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
“The things you did not receive are the
ones you were ready to compromise on.”
Source: Think Act And Achieve: Simple tips and techniques to achieve anything you aspire for and build the life of your dreams
“Sometimes all you can do is laugh.”
Source: Please Feel Bad I'm Dead