... pain can be all for the best

I'm in the middle of high school swim season right now.  And it's rough. We have two-a-day practices which basically make me want to die and two meets a week.  Since it is the night after two particularly hard practices I'm in a pretty negative mood.  But I know it will get better.

Today we ran two miles in the morning after weight lifting.  And that may not sound like very much, but I'm a swimmer and not a runner for a reason.  Running is hard for me, and this run imparticular was difficult.  I usually go into things like this with thoughts such as "This is stupid!" or "I'm never going to finish this," which clearly doesn't make the run any easier.  But shutting off negative thoughts is harder than you would think.  It's easy to think the night before, "Hey, tommorrow I'm going to work really hard at practice," but following through in the morning is a completely different situation.  But back to the run, I finished it despite my negative attitude.  Then this afternoon we did a difficult set in the pool.  And being the strong person I am, I developed a hip injury.  This is pretty common for me after I run, and I have no idea why.

With my pained hip I didn't get out of the set, I got to do it on the same time as everyone else, but only using my arms.  So now as I'm sitting here writing for my blog I'm in some serious pain.  My arms and legs and killing, and I know practice tomorrow is going to be rough too.  So my mental state is pretty weak too.  But sitting here with aching muscles feels kind of good, too.  I know  I worked hard today at practice, so when the end of the season comes I'll just be that much faster.  And practicing tomorrow with sore muscles is going to make swimming at State and Districts seem like a piece of cake.  It makes me feel like, if I can do this now when I feel horrible, what am I going to be able to do when I feel fantastic and well rested?  I'll be conquering the world.

So even though the pain is real rough, especially in the middle of a set or jog, I think it might all be worth it.  If it makes me swim faster and drop time, my hard work will be justified.  But what if I don't drop time?  Even then I think it'll still be worth it.  Through swimming I've made a lot of great friends, and the recognition I get is great too.  So even if I end up not getting stellar times, I won't regret it.  For some crazy reason I love swimming, don't ask me why.  The possiblity of improving and knowing that swimming makes me better even if I'm not dropping time makes me feell good.  It makes me optimistic that the pain can be all for the best.

... college will do us both good

This weekend I'm going to visit my sister at college.  And I'm excited.  I don't miss her around the house everyday to be honest, but that's probably because I never really saw her when she did live here.  Over the summer she was gone a lot of the time, and I was gone a lot of the time.  So on the rare occasions when we were home, it wasn't likely that we would run into each other.  And that's kind of sad.

But now that it's been almost a full month since I've seen her in person (I'm not counting our various Skype conversations) I'm getting pumped.  I get to see her college life and her new friends, but most importantly, I think we're going to get along.  My sister and I have a pretty average sibling relationship.  We argue quite a bit and haven't really had too many sister bonding moments.  But after I've talked to quite a few people who also have sisters who have gone off the college, I'm optimistic.  They've all said that since their sibling moved out their relationships have improved a lot.  And my sister and I could use that.

Even right before my sister was officially left at college we had an arguement.  I was helping her set up her dorm room, and apparantly I had made a mess.  (I don't see how this is possible.  Her stuff was strewn all over the room.)  We got in our usual fight where voices were raised and it ended up in everyone being a little upset.  It wasn't until after the disagreement that we realized it was pretty stupid.  This was the last day we were going to see each other for a full month and we were arguing.  However, that didn't stop a few other arguements popping up throughout the rest of the day.

But this weekend when I visit her I think things will be different.  We have been seperated so we will have plenty of things to talk about.  Also, I know she misses me.  She is really homesick even if she won't admit it to me.  My parents have noticed a drop in her spirits, so a visit from her favorite sister should help.  While I'm up there I'm determined to have a good time with her, with as few disagreements as possible.

It will probably take a little effort, but things will be easier.  We will be able to get along and have a great time.  I'm sure of it.  And that's why I'm optimistic that college will be good for both of us.

I'm optimistic that laughter is contagious

And how could I not be.  Have you ever seen four quadruplets laugh hysterically for minutes on end?  Well check it out and then try and tell me you can't spread happiness through laughter.

I'm optimistic that the best is yet to come

In John Brockman's book, What Are You Optimistic About? most contributors wrote pages about scientific evidence on why the world is getting better.  But my favorite entry was very different.  Nicholas Humphrey, a philosopher, wrote about why the world as a whole is getting better.  He says "If I had lived in the year 1007 and had been asked what I looked forward to for my decendents in the next millennium, I might have imagined many wonderful possibilities.  But I would not - because I could not - have imagined the music of Mozart, the painting of Rothko, the sonnets of Shakespeare, the novels of Dostoyevsky.  I would have failed to see one of the vest reasons of all for being optimistic, which is the power of human artistic genius to astonish us again and again.  I will not make the same mistake twice.  So let me say straight out: In 2007, I hope and expect that the best is yet to come, that greater works of art than any the world has ever seen will be created by human beings not far ahead of us - works of currently unimaginable aesthetic and moral force.  And, mind you, it will not require genetic modification, computer hynridization, high-tect brain enhancement or whatever - it will simply require that we continue to be the kind of people we are."

When quoting Humphrey's short writing, I could not find anything to cut out.  I felt his response was perfect and optimistic beyond any of the others I have read in the book so far.  What makes me optimistic is the way he simply believes things will get better just because they always do.  We do not need tons of new science to achieve a better world either.  All we need is to keep trying to improve and to keep being extraordinary human beings.  And I do not believe there is a statement out there that can top the optimism found in Humphrey's last phrase of his response.  "It will simply require that we continue to be the kind of people we are."

I'm optimistic that the universe sends signals

Recently, I watched a new independent horror film called Meadowoods.  Now, I understand that independent films have a lower budget than those made in Hollywood, but there was no excuse for this movie.  It was maybe one of the worst I have ever seen.  Two weeks ago a couple of friends and I rented Meadowoods from a Redbox location and attempted to watch it. We failed.  After getting forty minutes in, we decided we would have a much better time simply going to sleep.  Last night I was hanging out with a similar group of people and we were discussing the experience.  We decided that we did not give Meadowoods a real chance.  So, at eleven o'clock we decided to figure out where we could rent this movie in order to watch it again.  We searched the internet for a Redbox that carried the movie, and the closest one was across town.

We had already made up our minds.  This movie was not bad.  We just had a bad impression of it.  So we left the house to look for the movie.  After getting lost multiple times on the simple route and making one of the largest loops around town we finally arrived at our destination.  My friend jumped out of the car and quickly paid for the movie.  When we got back to the house we looked at a few reviews of the movie before playing it.  None of them were positive.  I believe the movie recieved one star.  But there werer hardly any reviews, so maybe only the people who did not like the movie wrote something.  That is reasonable, right?  No.  I believe the reason there were only a few reviews is because no one else wasted their time watching the full movie.

As soon as we put the movie in we ran into trouble.  It was severly scratched and began skipping after only a few minutes.  We took the movie out.  We thought the movie still had potential, so we looked up ways to fix a scratched DVD on google, and after sorting out the more unrealistic ones we settled on using furniture polish to clean it.  Not that that made any sense...  However the Pledge did seem to help a little, and after fast-forwarding through the initial scratch we did not run into any more severe problems for a while.

The plot of the movie was boring and unrealistic.  Three teenagers wanted to kill someone and get the whole process on video.  I do not understand what they were planning on doing with the video considering the fact that if it was found they would be arrested, but whatever, it was strange.  When asked why they wanted to kill someone the first guy responded that he was bored of his town and wanted to shake up the residents.  Boredom seems like a pretty stupid reason to commit murder, but it at least made a small bit on sense.  The next girl questioned said she wanted to kill someone because, well why not kill someone, people just hurt eachother so there is not really a point to life anyways.  That seemed stupid.  I suspected she was either a sociopath or the writers were simply to uncreative to come up with a better line.  The actress also spoke in a monotone, which really helped the delivery.  When the third person was asked why he was going to kill someone, the disc scratched, and that was probably for the best.

The movie continued on in this boring matter while they choose their random victim.  They liked to speak about the murder in public places without lowering their voices, and no one ever seemed to get suspicious of them.  There was a good twenty minutes of film when they were interviewing their intended victim, trying to find out what scared her most.  She also sang a song she had written herself during the interview, which was not all bad, possibly the high-light of the film.  The teenagers then went to the movie store's horror section for inspiration for how to kill their victim.  They decided on a tactic used in Kill Bill Volume Two.  I believe the climax was supposed to be when they kidnapped their victim, Kayla, but I am not really sure seeing as the DVD skipped that section too.

Next thing we know, two of the characters are pushing Kayla into a wooden box at gunpoint.  I guess they were planning on burying her alive.  There was at least ten minutes of footage where the screen was black and Kayla was screaming, supposedly taken while they were burying her.  They tormented her for a short while, then the third teenager showed up.  Apparantly he had changed his mind about the murder and was going to stop them.  The ending of the movie was very unclear.  One teenager was trying to shoot the teen who was disrupting their plan while the monotone girl shouted for them to stop killing eachother.  All of a sudden the teen with the gun shot himself for no apparant reason.  The disrupter then dug up the box in under a minute (I do not think it was buried very deep), and drug out Kayla, who was already dead.  Perhaps the box collapsed on her?  It was all unclear.  The high-point of the film was definitely the credits.  Under the title "Cast" there were only four characters listed.  Clearly this film had high budget.  And I believe one of the cast members may have been filming the video at all times.

Here is what I learned.  I should listen to the universe.  Clearly it was trying to tell us from the beginning not to watch this movie.  We fell asleep the first time, got lost trying to rent it, and were distracted by multiple scratches.  I am convinced someone watched the movie and intentionally scratched it so no one else would have to suffer the same way they did.  So, I have learned to trust my first instincts, seeing as it would have saved me a dollar and an hour and twenty minutes of my life I would much rather have spent on something more useful then watching Meadowoods.

I'm optimistic that people are good

In John Brockman's book What Are You Optimistic About, David Bodanis came up with an inspiring answer.  The author of Passionate Minds said "I'm optimistic because there's a core decency in people that even the worst machinations of governments can't entirely hold down."  Bodanis explains how the Evelina hospital in London, built around a giant atrium, requires all window cleaners to wear superhero costumes while cleaning.  "The children [at Evelina] in bed - many with grave illnesses - delight in seeing Superman and Spiderman dangling just inches away from them, on the outside of the glass."  Bodanis continues by mentioning the obvious failures of the English health care system, and despite all issues, he reasons for optimism.  "The government has wasted a fortune on consultants, bureaucracy, and reorganizations of the national Health Service.  It's always defended in cold management-speak.  This simple arrangement with the window cleaners cuts through all that.  Everyone I've mentioned it to recognizes that - and in that recognition lies our hope."

To me, it seems comical that when corporate officials were designing contracts for cleaning companies they thought to require costumes.  It softens their impression on me, and leads me to believe that although they can sometimes be sly, even corporate officials have the capacity to be good and truly care for the children.

I'm optimistic that corporations are evolving

According to Optimist World's article "California company Netflix lets staff take as much as they want when they want" by Simon Meadows, the way companies are being run is beginning to change.  Netflix's new holiday system relies on self-discipline.  As long as managers are aware of employees whereabout and their work is being done, then they can take as much vacation time as they want.  Netflix's vice president for corporate communication, Steve Swasey told Optimist World "Rules and policies and regulations and stipulations are innovation killers.  People do their best work when they're unencumbered.  If you're spending a lot of time accounting for the time you're spending, that's time you're not innovating."

I believe Netflix is taking a needed innovative approach to vacation.  The number of people working from home is on the increase, so why can't certain amounts corporate work also be completed while on vacation?  Perhaps unrestricted forms of vacation aren't appropriate for all business models, but not much harm can be done by loosening restrictions on vacation days and letting employees use their self-discipline to complete their work.


Read the Optimist World article here.