Smile Though your Heart is Breaking

What’s wrong with a little optimism? Is it really wrong to try to look up during times that are so down?
 
For example, at my job, there are days when the café gets so busy that the entire staff is on its feet for several hours at a time.  There is constant rushing around and sometimes dropping of plates and cups but if we are able to keep an upbeat attitude, it makes it all easier.  I know that I prefer that everyone tries his or her best to remain polite during a rush.  It makes it that much easier to get things done.
 
In A Cool Million, Pitkin is constantly looking on the bright sides of things and in his case, it is not always to his advantage.  Sometimes optimism can stem from naivety rather than from a place of knowledge.  Perhaps he was able to stay positive because he really didn’t understand what was going on at the time.
 
Pitkin parallels people of today who seem to think that our problem can just be fixed with a snap of a finger and Obama’s signature on a couple of things.  Unfortunately, we are in much deeper than that and have a ways to go before we can be completely dug out.  Then there are those people who are impatient and thought that Obama’s coming into the picture would be able to solve all of the country’s problems immediately.  This, too, is a form of naïve optimism that quickly led to naïve anger.  As I mentioned before, the problem is quite large and will (and already has) taken a while to get rid of.
 
We need to find a balance between optimism and naivety in order to have a better functioning country and happier people.