Say not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain
-- Arthur Hugh Clough
There are those people who can see through the present troubles to the harvest of innovation ahead. There are those people who have not bowed to cynicism and continue to look for good people to work with. There are those people who actually are thankful for what has happened because the misdeeds of dishonesty and self-interest are being exposed and purged. There are those people who are not afraid to deal with real life because they, too, know how it feels. There are also those people who realize that, when the material world is shaking, it opens the door to discussing what really matters most to people. These people I'm describing always guide with hope because they understand that everyone needs and wants it--even if very few know where to turn for it.
What we need right now are people like these ... people I call "opti-mystics."
I am not talking about people who sputter motivational clichés and horoscopic incantations. Nor am I talking about people who are simply trying to stay positive.
I am talking about people of purpose--those individuals who know that they are living out a calling and who relish every conversation in any circumstance because it allows them the opportunity to exercise their gifts. I am talking about the rare type of person who understands that the source of a great life starts with attitude and spirit--something that is still squarely within our locus of control when other things aren't. While the material world may be crumbling around these individuals, it does not change who they are or why they are. Their raison d'etre trumps every doomsday prediction that might otherwise stop them from trying.
What Is In You?
What we discover in times like this is what is inside us. Troubled times are like boiling water. We are like tea bags. To borrow a phrase from Gatorade, "What is in you?"
Now is the time to discover and decide if, in fact, you are an opti-mystic. I will describe the character of one and leave it to you to decide.
Opti-mystics are first and foremost resourceful.
Resourceful people make the absolute most of what they are given. While others around them are complaining about what little they have been given, or about how much they have lost, the resourceful soul is already plotting how to multiply what they already have.
Opti-mystics believe that right makes might.