Choices

It seems cruel, but inevitable, that we are faced with choices throughout the years of our lives without the benefit, most of us, of wise counsel. We rarely come equipped with the wisdom on our own part that is likely to yield the best outcomes. It seems a contradiction that as we gain experience and knowledge, the range of choices, the options available to us, are increasingly reduced with the passage of time. By the time we reach an age where experience may have prompted wisdom, the social dynamics we face, and/or our physical capacities, may have radically limited the options for action which may be available to us.

Younger ages are more often inclined to optimism, which is a good thing. The young are more likely to challenge the barriers they inevitably face. They have not yet been battered into submission by a flood of realities. When we are older, given our knowledge and experience, we are more likely to approach the challenges we face with pessimism. We have our histories of defeats that we remember with more force than our memory of successes. And we are experiencing a gradual decline in capacities that we find alarming. It affects attitude and mood. But at that stage we need youthful enthusiasm and optimism more than ever if we are not to resign before the challenges we are likely to face. We need a sense of optimism more than ever if we are to make the most of what we have left.

At both these stages, pessimism, if it prevents us from mounting our resources to confront “a sea of troubles”*, can be the kiss of death. Part of the answer of the challenges we face at any stage is a willingness to try, to fail, if that is how it may turn out, and to try again some other way. That is always a choice, a choice that can sometimes accompany success, if pursued with persistence. We have plenty of history to back up that assertion. Pessimism can stand in the way of such a choice.                 

Speaking personally, I have always remembered my successes more than my defeats. Those latter I have often confined to the ash heap. My Bride, more pessimistic, finds my attitudes foolhardy, but she is envious. We are what we are, and I am the eternal optimist. I think we have to be, given what we will be facing in our nineties.

*Part of a soliloquy by Hamlet in “Hamlet”, confronting his choices in a play by Shakespeare.