The document discusses the importance of optimism and possibility thinking. It provides quotes defining optimism as not dwelling on problems but fixing them, and defining pessimism as coming from temperament but optimism coming from will. It also introduces the concept of possibility thinking as neither hoping without reason nor fearing without reason, but resisting overdramatic views and seeing progress as possible. It closes with a story about two salesmen, one seeing no opportunity in Africa because they don't wear shoes, while the other saw opportunity because they don't have shoes yet.

1. Be
optimist
Optimism
is not the refusal to see what is
wrong,
it is the desire not to dwell on it.
2021.12.10 /om@

4. If something is
wrong,
fix it now.
But train yourself
not to worry, worry
fixes nothing.
(Ernest Hemingway)

5. Pessimism comes from the
temperament,
optimism from the will.
(Alain)

6. I’m not an optimist.
That makes me sound naïve.
I’m a very serious “possibilist.”
That’s something I made up.
It means someone who neither hopes
without reason,
nor fears without reason,
someone who constantly resists the
overdramatic worldview.
As a possibilist, I see all this progress,
and it fills me with conviction
and hope that further progress is possible.
This is not optimistic.
(Hans Rosling, #FactFullness)

7. Act like it it’s
impossible to fail.
(Winston Churchill)

11. It's the story of the two salesmen who went
down to Africa in the 1900s.
They were sent down to find if there was any
opportunity for selling shoes, and they wrote
telegrams back to Manchester.
One of them wrote,
“Situation hopeless.
Stop.
They don't wear shoes.”
The other one wrote,
"Glorious opportunity.
They don't have any shoes yet."