Blindly Living

Once upon a time I was telling someone of some of the dissapointments I was having in my life and this person described me as "blindly optimistic." Which I took as a good thing...but they meant it in a negative way. Which led to a epic discussion of whether it in fact was a good thing or a bad thing.

So I decided I would write a blog about it, since I most often use my blogs as an open forum of thought and discussion...except I mostly just discuss with myself I think.

I guess to fully understand what blindly optimistic means I must first figure out what the word "blindly" means in this phrase. According to dictionary.com Blindly means : in a blind manner, without understanding, reservation, or objection.

So it is fair to say that I was optimistic without understanding, reservation or objection.

According to this particular person, being blindly optimistic is just a surefire way to set yourself up for a big disappointment. That is why they consider it a bad thing. Which is true in a way, I can't deny that. It is kindof like having a fear of heights. Just like it is physically hard for someone people to jump out of a tree, it is just as hard or harder emotionally to let yourself fall from heights that you are not comfortable with, which can happen a lot when you enter into any situation "blindly."

However it is impossible to not go through life without some type of blindness in any way. There are many types of things we do blindly in life. We are all blindly optimistic, we all have a blind trust, we all at some point love blindly, and many of us have a blind faith in many things. Being blind means you have to let your guard down, you have to be uninhibited and unrestricted. You have to open your eyes all the way and be %100 open to the consequences or rewards of the situation. It means you might not know why, or how you believe in what you are doing but you do it anyways because its right, because you might achieve something, because you dream of making something happen. It means not taking into account the many times you have fallen before. It means not thinking about how bad it hurt the last time you tried and it means stepping up to bat, even when you got hit in the face the last time you stood at the plate.

I think many people are afraid of the commitment that comes with such openess. Many people censor themselves because of the past. They know that they have tried before and have been ungracefully denied. Instead of being unrestricted and open many people become restricted, they withdraw their efforts and become closed. Maybe they don't try as hard the next time, maybe they don't climb as high in the tree next time because they know it hurts too much when they fall. People think if I just lower my expectations, then I know it won't hurt me as much when I fail.

I firmly think this is the exact opposite of what we need to do. Because what would the opposite of "blindly optimistic" be? It would be "guardedly optimistic" or "that would be cool if it happens but I don't think it will." I believe if someone ever loses this blindness for the things of life, they have lost a part of their innocence that is so essential to experiencing life to its fullest. I believe that when you get to the point where you are lowering your own expectations just so you might not fall as hard, then you really are never going to discover your true potential. Its like resorting to play defense the whole football game instead of offense. Sure, you might play excellent defense but your never giving yourself a chance to score and so your never giving yourself a chance to win. We cannot be so preoccupied with preventing failure, that we cheat ourself out of success.

Sure you might look dumb when you get hurt, and you probably will fall many many times but you have to let it roll off your shoulder or the next time you fall your only going to give 90% effort and the next time 80% and so on until you don't feel like trying at all. And at the point you have resigned yourself to your own fate of failure. The game of life has won because we have spent the whole time playing defense because we were too afraid of what might happen. Since we were too afraid of what might happen, we never knew what could happen.

Anyways that is all.

The End.