Choose Optimism

When I was nineteen, I found myself suffocating in a haze of cynicism—every conversation, every new idea, every dream I voiced was greeted with skepticism or outright dismissal. I grew up in India where most people believed in Murphy’s Law with unwavering conviction—if something could go wrong, it would. The only person in my life who consistently radiated hope was my mother. She derived her optimism from faith in God—and even though I considered myself less religious, her unshakable trust in goodness planted a seed in me. I realized if she could find a reason to believe in a brighter tomorrow, maybe I could learn to trust myself, too.

I remember one moment in particular: she and I were sitting on a veranda, watching the monsoon rains pummel our neighborhood. Steam rose from the wet earth, carrying the sharp scent of wet clay and crushed leaves. Through the grey curtain of rain, our neighbors houses looked like watercolor paintings. “Look at the water,” she said, voice hushed with awe. “Right now it’s trouble, but soon we’ll have flowers everywhere.” Her faith that hardship could become beauty was the first crack in my own pessimistic shell. Pessimism had always been easy—like a warm comforter that shields you from disappointment. Soon after, I resolved to test out optimism—just to see if it could bear fruit. In a sense, I was tired of waiting for someone else to tell me life could be better.

It didn’t take long for that shift to collide with everyday realities. Optimism, I found, demanded creativity. It was a call to action rather than a lazy dismissal of possibility. One of my early “optimist projects” occurred at my university, where I decided to build a solar-powered airplane that could operate for really long periods of time. I remember the raised eyebrows and patronizing smiles of my classmates. More than one professor politely tried to steer me towards a more “practical” project. But something in me refused to let the idea go.

I was enthralled by the metaphor of harnessing pure sunlight to power human ambitions. My mother’s unwavering hope felt like a gentle push at my back, reminding me to pursue my goals with infinite optimism. So I recruited a few equally curious classmates—though each had reservations, they agreed to help me tinker with the design. We worked every spare hour outside of class, sourcing solar cells from Chinese manufacturers, running simulations, and designing the airplane. Six months later, we had a prototype—rough around the edges, but undeniably an airplane. We decided to drive from Goa to Hyderabad to showcase the project at an engineering conference.

The drive itself felt epic: we crammed the plane parts into an old SUV, careful not to bend the wings, and set off at dawn. When we finally arrived at the conference, our plane certainly didn’t steal the show with some eternal flight demonstration—that was the dream, after all, to be powered indefinitely by the sun. Instead, it made a short, clumsy flight across a dusty field, then sputtered to an awkward landing after just a few laps. But that brief airborne moment was electrifying. We’d proven that our attempt wasn’t pure fantasy.

Looking back, the solar plane never attained “perpetual flight.” We did, however, learn a tremendous amount: all the little details about wiring, panel efficiency, and aerodynamic tweaks. Equally vital, I gained a quiet confidence in my ability to build things—despite being called naive and reckless.

In a sense, I’ve come to see pessimism as the default posture in a culture wary of failure. You can always sound “smart” by pointing out what might go wrong. After all, if you never believe in anything, you’re rarely crushed by a downfall. But this is also prevents you from experiencing meaningful joy.

Admittedly, there’s a lonely aspect to optimism. Sometimes it feels like standing in a storm, arms stretched wide, insisting the sun will shine again. People roll their eyes or accuse you of being unrealistic. They question your motives—”Are you just too afraid to see the truth?” But optimism isn’t about denying the existence of storms; it’s about refusing to believe that storms are all there is. True optimism demands active engagement with reality—an acknowledgement of challenges, accompanied by a conviction that something better can still be built.

I used to define optimism as a static mindset: you’re either a glass-half-full person or you’re not. But lately, I’ve begun to see optimism as more of a practice, akin to daily meditation. When we assume that every idea might bloom, we begin to approach the world like a curious gardener. We prune away negativity, water the seeds of good intentions, and shield them from the frost of cynicism.

I still catch myself slipping into gloom on occasion—the news is bleak, the economy precarious, the climate uncertain. But then I remember that boy crammed into the SUV with half-finished plane, driving through Indian highways with the hope of making something improbable fly. He was scared, yes, but also thrilled by possibility. That same electric hope exists in me now—flickering and fragile, but undeniably present.

Like those monsoon flowers my mother promised, my optimism blooms in unexpected places now. The rains still come, but I see them differently—not as nature’s assault, but as its investment in tomorrow’s gardens. At the end of the day, there’s no decisive verdict—no triumphant banner reading “Optimism Wins!” Instead, there’s the messy, human scramble of day-to-day existence. And in that daily hustle, each of us must choose how we interpret the next idea, the next challenge, the next piece of bad news. For me, I’ve made peace with being the eternal gardener of maybe—the one who sees fertile ground in every patch of doubt. Maybe that’s naive, or maybe it’s just a vow to keep my eyes open for the light.