#MY SMILE AND OPTIMISM GONE FULL#

Some laughed with full on excitement and some did not. Some people looked up with enormous smiles and glee, screaming for a $1.00 plastic Mardi Gras necklace. For well over an hour, my husband and I began throwing beads down to people walking along the street. I chose to believe they were there for the taking. Now I’m not sure if they were there for future moments, or for the employees or hanging there with full permission for just any person to throw. Hanging off the railings were lines and lines of Mardi Gras beads. One night, we went into a risqué bar and found our way to their roof top balcony. We went out every night, ate good food and walked the partying streets. And when in New Orleans, you must integrate into the party – there is no sitting on the sidelines. Last week, my husband and I went to New Orleans. When we train the mind to build from the root of optimism every day, eventually it becomes an automatic response. It is the platform we develop for the mind. Because if we require the external world to be the way we find joy, happiness and optimism, then we will find it costs an extreme amount of finances and usually only lasts a few moments at a time.Ī state of mind is a disposition. If we choose to be in a state of mind of optimism, then we don’t require the external world to always entertain us. When we choose to hold our state of mind in optimism, then joy and happiness will follow easily. And if you practice centering the mind upon the state of optimism regularly – it will become your automatic disposition.

Optimism is a state of mind – which means it is something you must develop internally. It is choose to see kindness, even when it is hidden. It is to honor celebrations whenever possible, to offer a laugh whenever it can be inserted. It is to see goodness in moments, even when goodness seems absent. It requires you to have faith and hope and to choose to believe it will all flow the way it should be, before an reassurance is given. Optimism requires a disposition prior to favorable outcomes. It has little to do with the external world providing you with goodness and perfect outcomes. Optimism is not something that happens to you.

My smile and optimism gone