Postscript:
Reflections on tornados and perpetual optimism
By Carrie Classon | Contributor | May 2025
The tornado
My friend Wally and I have a fractious relationship. This is no secret.
Wally has said he thinks optimistic people like me are self-deluded, always looking for reasons to be happy when there is a lot to worry about and not much to celebrate.
Wally used the metaphor of a tornado. He said people like me would be down in the storm shelter right beside him but would ignore the destruction the tornado left behind.
“Do perpetually positive people even hear themselves?” he asked. “How nice that must be! To see the world in ways it might or should be while ignoring how it is. To look for the rainbow while ignoring the flood!”
Wally got me so irritated that I wrote a whole book about a character he inspired. Since I didn’t figure I could ever change Wally’s mind, I wanted to create someone just like Wally who believed he had the world’s worst luck and that looking for things to be grateful for was an act of willful ignorance.
I wrote the book and shared it with him and, to his credit and my astonishment, he wasn’t angry with my depiction of him at all. He was tickled that something he’d said inspired me.
Wally keeps on inspiring me. He has some interesting observations about life and thoughts about how optimism might fall short. It’s taken me much longer than it should have to realize that Wally makes some very good points.
Optimism can be clumsy. It can be ham-fisted. Disappointment, grief, setbacks, bad news and failures are all very real, and the optimist’s impulse is to sweep them under the rug in record time.
“Where is the upside? What is the lesson? How can I learn from all this?” the optimist asks. Wally finds this annoying, perhaps with good reason because somewhere between the time the tornado strikes and the optimist goes looking for the rainbow, maybe there’s a moment that optimists tend to forget.
We forget to say we’re sorry.
Wally is worried about his future and the future of his children and grandchildren. When I tell him all this worrying isn’t getting much done he gets angry and, really, I don’t blame him. Because I skipped a step. I skipped the step between the tornado and the rainbow.
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Today, for a change, I remembered.
“Oh, Wally,” I said, “you always seem to think I’m scolding you when I try to cheer you and encourage you. I care about you. Do you not get that? I worry about you and want you to be happy.”
“Thank you,” Wally said. “Thank you so much.”
And I realized that he really didn’t know this.
I get impatient with Wally’s ruminating and doomsaying and daily dose of gloom. I want to remind him of all the things he has to be grateful for.
But I forget to tell him that I care. I forget to say I’m sorry he is troubled. I don’t acknowledge how he feels. I jump right from the tornado to the rainbow.
I’m pretty sure Wally will continue to regularly irritate me, and I will do the same for him. I’ll continue to remind him that things might not be as bad as he assumes and he’ll remind me, in my endless quest for sunshine, that it’s important to recognize the hurt and fear that come with the tornado.
Till next time.
Postscript: Reflections on levitating cats, learned helplessness, and 10 years of marriage (April 2025)
Postscript: Reflections on circling friendships and my 100-year-old grandmother (March 2025)
Postscript: Reflections on my car wash dress and the fine tradition of friendly teasing (February 2025)
Postscript: Reflections on little luxuries and being unreasonable (January 2025)
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