The World's Common Tater

I am not an optimistic person. I always assume the worst. I feel like that is the better bet. It’s easier to assume the worst and be surprised when it doesn’t happen than to be sad when you expect good things and they don’t happen. It’s probably not a healthy way to live, but that’s me.

I’m at a point now, though, that I need optimism. I need optimism because everything pretty much sucks. The news is all terrible. We are still social distancing and kids can’t go back to school in person. There’s a good chance we won’t have college football this fall. My job still depresses me. My daughter moves into her apartment near college this week where she will live even if school is all virtual this year. This means my life will be going to a job that is slowly killing me and then clocking out to hours at home alone while my wife is still working coupled with worry about my kids who don’t live with us. I need optimism.

So many other people seem determined to dash any optimism. I still look at the coronavirus numbers every day. There is some reason for optimism there. Maryland’s numbers are looking better every day. Yesterday, the national numbers were at the lowest they’ve been in a while. I look at the Twitter threads because people post more detailed numbers in the threads that I find interesting. Unfortunately, the threads are also full of people determined to end any optimism. They point out any reason they can find to discredit any positive trends. There are always the “just wait two weeks” people. News about football gets posted and people jump on to be the first to opine that the season won’t happen. It’s all doom and gloom and nothing will ever be normal again. We will see headlines about how UNC failed at in person college, but any success stories will either be buried or ignore completely. We are addicted to bad news porn.

I need optimism and positivity. I just don’t know where to find it.