Good Things

I was going to write an introduction about how I'm not really one for gratitude lists and needless sentimentality, but I couldn't do it. I'm trying to develop the ability to be unabashed and genuine in my enthusiasm for things. So I'm writing a happy, if somewhat saccharine list and will allow myself this paragraph of over-explaining to ease the discomfort of doing a new thing.

I am thankful that...

My first instinct upon reading my list (assembled in no particular order) was an internal groan at how trite it seems. I'm grateful for friends, family, random things that have gone well for me and mine and that a few good things exist in the world? Where's the insight? The depth of meaning? This is so lame.

It's a hard attitude to overcome. Cynicism is a poison not easily expunged. It takes hold in the murky adolescent years, a seductive path to social clout and the cool new identity you're trying to build for yourself. Your parents are lame, your old hobbies are lame, those guys are cool, everyone respects the mysterious rebel.

Then you're an adult and you come to realize the truth:

Cynicism is a shortcut to the peanut gallery, the place where derision replaces enjoyment and apathy replaces inspiration. It makes you write off adventures before they happen, keeps you from celebrating your wins and truly mourning your losses. It dooms you to a life as the eternal critic, forever keeping you from the sands of the arena.

Too many adults don't make that breakthrough. Too many descend into the torpor of "what's the point?"

For the last several years cynicism has infected the zeitgeist. Finally, we seem to be fighting back. It's small, this shift, and comes at one of the darkest, most turbulent global periods in decades. So it's easy to miss them, the happy warriors who refuse to bend the knee to apathy and derision. The noise and manufactured outrage is still deafening.

I am thankful for every last one of you who has picked up an optimism gun and is out there trying. Whatever your thing is, whatever passion or cause or interest inspires you, you put good energy back into the system that we desperately need right now.

Comic source: xkcd #308