A Word on Wednesday: Discovery

A discovery is an act or instance of discovering. Discovery also refers to the thing, which has been discovered. The discovery does not need to be something new in order to be discovered. Only new to the seeker.

I hope to routinely discover glimmers of real.

Daily Discovery
Flicker of light
Patterns esoteric
Truth in plain sight

A Word on Wednesday: Optimism

Optimism is something to celebrate.

An optimist will remember the promise of spring on a blustery, winter day, believe in what's possible rather than dwell on the impossible, and live with more hope than worry. This glass-half-full mindset is shorthand for optimism.     

The noun, optimism, is primarily defined as a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome. 

The word expect is key in looking at the definition. Optimists do not hope for or wish for, they expect. A true optimist will live without fear or doubt slowing them down. 

Further definitions of optimism are closer to its Latin and French Eighteenth Century roots. Optimism is a doctrine/teaching of a belief system:  

• that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world;

• that goodness pervades reality; or

• that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.

In this way, optimism is faith. It is doctrine without contradiction, without hocus pocus, and without moral codes of conduct. Optimism also is a word without reference to a deity. It is simple, derived from Latin optimus best, superlative of bonus good. 

Optimism declares the world is good, a world where there is an ultimate triumph of good over evil. 

Optimists are not just looking to the bright side. Optimists are not just peering through rose-colored glasses. Optimists are more; they are believers. 

A Word on Wednesday: Similarities

Differences are easy to see. Any child can circle the six things different on the second adjacent picture. Yet, the same game player overlooks all that is the same. 

I'm not suggesting a place where we are cloaked in sameness. Accept and promote diversity, but rather than focusing on what is different, look for the similarities. 

The plural noun, similarities, captures the likeness and resemblance that exist, the traits and aspects that are reflected from one to another. 

In a place rooted in common ground, it is easy to focus on similarities rather than that which divides. 

William Shakespeare's eternal truism regarding this was written more than four hundred years ago in "The Merchant of Venice." 

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" (Act III, scene I)