Optimism in the face of a Pandemic

I have been accused many times of being an Optimist.

As a supervisor of a team it is beneficial that I keep an optimistic view if I want to motivate people.

Now enter the Corona-virus Epidemic, and Optimism can be seen taking a back seat to many other feelings like concern, worry, anxiety and even fear.  There is obviously good reason for these feelings and they are all totally valid, and they all push optimism to the back burner.

I was texting with a good friend recently and one of the messages really hung up in my thoughts.  He asked me: "We are going to be OK , aren't we?"

Now will optimism be the right choice here?  It had me thinking long and hard about my reply.

I think about all the people who have said, Optimism is naive.  Better to tell the cold hard facts, than some pie in the sky affirmation.  No one wants to hear, its gonna be OK or things always look darkest before the dawn while they are worried about today and are bombarded with stories of various degrees of grim from many sources.  

So is Optimism the right approach?

The answer is YES.  Absolutely YES, because Optimism is far from naive.

You see some people confuse "positivity" the "everything will Be OK, or "light at the end of the tunnel" with Optimism when they are really two different things.

Positivity falls mostly in the realm of denying reality to paint a better picture. "Everything is fine"  or "We are all gonna be just fine" and "don't worry Be Happy!"

Optimism on the other hand, as defined by Author and speaker Simon Sinek, is the belief that the future will be positive while not denying the present.

We can be confident in the future as Christians because we know God knows:

Mark 6: 25-34 talks about how we need not worry.  Look around us and see that all living things have have what they need by God, and God would not provide us any less.

So Mark 6:34 sums it up:

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

So I texted my friend back:

Yes, I think we will be OK.  We are going though an unprecedented rough time, it's tough, its hard and it is scary, but we will come out of his OK, and we will do it together.

Optimism is not Naive, it is confidence in our future despite our present.  A confidence that for ME, is provided by God.