A Quack like Me

"The optimist lives delighting in thoughts of love and charity...The pessimist, being himself prey to violent attachments and dislikes, looks upon every person as his enemy..." - 'Optimism' (G.), Navajivan, 23 Oct 1921

My wife has told me often over the years that when ever we talk about the future, I always see the bad things that can happen and never the good, and I believe she is telling me the truth..  It is a hard thing for me to hear.

I want to believe that I am an optimist, but that is not the truth.  I live in fear.  I seem to have been that way as long as I can remember.

When I was a boy and would tell my father that I was afraid, he would look at me sternly and tell me there was nothing to be afraid of. 

My father had a difficult upbringing.  His mother was married either seven or nine times, he wasn't sure which.  At the age of sixteen, he beat up his then current step-father and went to live in the oil fields of California with his real father, working for him on his wild-cat oil rigs.  At seventeen, he joined the Navy and was in port in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.  His first ship was sunk there.  Two more ships he was on during the war were sunk in the Pacific.  I don't think he could ever let himself feel scared and he didn't want his son to be fearful.  But I was, and I felt like I was a failure.  I was never the son my father wanted.  He wanted a man's man.  I was far more comfortable with women.

In recent years, I have begun to accept that I am a fearful person.  I don't like it, but I have stopped trying to change this fact about myself.  It is not in my power to change.  However, what is in my power to change is how I react to my fears.

I pray for courage.