BitterSweetLife

An Expose of the Upbeat Perspective


"Optimism"...a mere shadow of the good life?

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I'd like to publish a simple manifesto. In its most stripped down form, my declaration runs as follows:

Screw optimism.*

Now let me clarify. (Before you pause, then thoughtfully bookmark this page in your "amusingly angst-ridden" section.) This may sound like a strikingly depressing start to a dramatically jaded post, but that's not where I'm headed. So what exactly am I saying? That we should smash the rose-colored glasses, kick a hole in the positive think-tank, shatter that half-full coffee mug-I mean-glass? Well…it wouldn't hurt. But my problem with optimism isn't that it's happy but that it's artificial.

I'm all for happiness. In fact, to be happy is a fundamental purpose of life. As C.S. Lewis said, "It is a Christian duty for everyone to be as happy as he can." But what Lewis described was not optimism.

"Optimism," as I understand it, is "seeing the bright side," putting a "positive spin" on things, being “up.” But optimism offers no foundation for chronic upbeatness. It's like giving kids a bike with flat tires and saying "Go ride." Or like giving (MU) fans a team with flat coaches and saying "Go root." All optimists are doomed in the end, because there are some events in life that no amount of mental posturing can "positivize."

It's at these junctures that optimism appears as the dry well it really is. We all know that we ought to be happy, and most of us want to. When we're not, we sense something is wrong, and others look at us nervously and wish we would lighten up. But to say that optimism is an answer for pain is like saying There's got to be a way to spontaneously levitate, if I just think about it long enough. So, having resolved to drop optimism like a Martha Stewart stock tip, what's the alternative?

Looking back at some of my earliest posts, I realize this question—Where is the wellspring, the origin for authentic joy?—is one I continually grapple with. This elusive reality—the fundamental, radical nature of joy—was, in fact, the crucial ingredient in the creation of this blog. In one of my formative posts I said:

…I was trying to get an understanding of how my life could be so screwed up—and still there were these sudden moments of joy, lodged in my soul like glowing splinters. Why did they coexist?

Why indeed? Not because I had a “positive spirit.” Rather, because the bed-rock foundation of joy runs miles below shallow streams of “mindset,” eclipsing what I might feel at any given moment. Joy must rest on a higher reality than sentiment. Ultimately, we need, not a saccharine soul, but a happy God.

I sometimes wonder what a direct glance at Christ’s face—provided we survived it—would do to our vision of reality. I am not convinced that “one glimpse of his dear face, all sorrows would erase;” what I guess at is even more fantastic: sorrows not obliterated, but incorporated. Not erased, but realigned.

We would see the dance of the cosmos, of this shattered earth as ultimately triumphant, moved by a happiness that confronts tragedy and encompasses it. A joy that sweeps up life’s broken fragments and makes with them a mosaic, a stained-glass window, through which light shines. Perhaps the stains are the sorrows. I don’t know, but I suspect a glance in Christ’s eyes would give me a new read on suffering, an understanding that it somehow counted. That it did not negate happiness, but interlaced it. Like Paul of Tarsus wrote, “We are sorrowful but always rejoicing.”

But this use of sorrow, this recycling of pain, is only one outcome. We need more than a solution for suffering; we need a reason for joy. And we find it, in God himself, when we examine the edges of our lives more closely.

We all spend a number of years discovering that the world is not “a friendly place” after all. Then, if the journey of discovery continues, we find an even more impacting truth: Creation is.

Why? Because the happiest being in the universe is the One calling the shots. Therefore, the dance of time is ultimately joyful. The artistry of eternity is inevitably, finally, celebratory. Elated and worshipful.

We need a happy God like kids need a happy dad—and we have Him. God's joyful heart hems in, defines, the universe. As Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Later, one of his disciples would echo, “I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

Christ brings unshakeable joy.

We need, not optimism, but death-defying happiness. Joy comes to us, not through knuckle-whitening resolve to be up, but through infinite satisfaction in an endlessly perfect relationship. And this relationship waits nearby. Christ, who laughed with his disciples in the shadow of the cross, still walks with us today.

To sum up then, Life in Christ is pure joy. Life on earth is pain. Therefore, life is bittersweet.

For now.


* A perceptive reader (i.e. the type who make return visits to this blog) would have noted that “Screw optimism” is actually a completely inadequate and even misleading summary of my Joy “manifesto.” You’re absolutely right; it only conveys the negative, combative side of my statement. But it did get your attention, right?