I have a keen memory of when I learned the world is not a perfect amazing place. 

I was about ten years old and saw a movie in which a young child dies of cancer. 

My innocence was shattered at the injustice of this!

I have never been the same since. 

I have found comfort in the words of other mere mortals. 

People who look around to see the good in the world and then take notice that it is worth fighting for. 

I admire the words of the famous painter Norman Rockwell when describing why he painted with humor and wit. 

“Maybe as I grew up and found that the world wasn’t the perfectly pleasant place I had thought it to be I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn’t an ideal world, it should be and so painted only the ideal aspects of it.” Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator, 1960

I am a fan of the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, a man who fought in WWI. 

His writing practically bleeds empathy at many points. 

My favorite selection comes from a conversation between Gandalf the wizard, and Frodo the ring bearer. 

Frodo is feeling quite anxious about the ring. He is horrified by the thought that the ring on a chain around his neck is the very ring created by the dark lord Sauron. 

The humanity in this passage is beautiful. 

[Frodo] “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

[Gandalf] “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”

Even with all the problems the world faces I find myself siding with these optimists. 

Albert Einstein said it plainly. 

“I’d rather be an optimist and a fool, than a pessimist and right.”