When Sahil was in grade 3, his piano teacher tried in many creative ways to make his Marche Slave by Tchaikovsky sound a bit more somber and less like a perky marching band tune. With his recital fast approaching, in a last ditch attempt, she asked him to think of one sad instance in his life, and then play the song. Sahil thought for a bit, and said:
“Ms. Christine, I really can’t think of anything sad that has ever happened to me.”
My immediate thought was, “We must have done something right after all!”, on this mysterious, muddled, and often nerve-wracking path of parenthood where its not clear if you are doing your best, and more importantly, if your best is actually the best or the worst or something in between. Especially when it’s your first child.
“Really?” I asked Sahil. He said, “Well maybe I was a teeny-weeny sad the day my Lego Millennium Falcon fell and some parts broke,” pinching his tiny fingers together in a show of how minuscule his '“hurt feelings” were. I smiled.
Fast forward 5 years, Sahil, now a teen and an 8th grader, showed me his essay below. He wrote it for Reflections, a national PTA competition. Optimist, he said, in the title. Flashback time. I thought once more, “We must have done something right!”.
This time, I was really relieved. We are in the thick of teen years with all its trials and tribulations, and the best or the worst judgment call gets even more muddied in this phase, when parents—those strange old things—often don’t get it (smile).
So here’s Sahil or Optimism. I am sure he’d appreciate your comments.
Meaningfully yours,
Anu Prabhala
Sahil or Optimism
The history of humanity itself is founded on hope: from the cradle of civilization–Mesopotamia–where ancient farmers fervently invoked their Gods for a great harvest, to the Black Death when Europeans desperately prayed for the titular epidemic to end and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic where all of us were hoping against all odds for the quarantine, isolation, and the millions of deaths to end.
I Am No Different than My Hopeful Predecessors
When times become harder, just as the Mesopotamians turned to their Gods, I rely on my inherent optimism, my God within. I truly believe that I was born an optimist. Thankfully, life presented opportunities fairly early on for me to manifest this optimism mainly through the world of quizzing. Quiz competitions, which I have taken part in since grade 3, require a great deal of confidence and hope to carry on from round to round till the win, despite taking losses in between. For example, this summer, I competed in the International History Olympiad’s Roman History Bee held in Rome, Italy. In the first round of the competition, I answered only two questions–a low score–but I didn’t let that deter me from trying my best in the second round. I still remained hopeful and luckily for me, that was all I needed. In the second round, I achieved a perfect score and even made it to finals!
Hope, defined simply as, “to want something to happen or be true” (Merriam–Webster) has great power, and someone who does not desperately want something to come true like how I did, will let loss blind their path to success. I am hopeful because optimism can help me move past the greatest of losses.
Optimism and Swamiji’s Teachings
Optimism is like a plant. It can both grow and wilt over time. Luckily, my Swamiji (a Hindu religious teacher) always taught me to be optimistic, cultivating my budding seed of hope to blossom into a flower. Swamiji once told us about the tale of a bird. No matter what the day, time, or occasion, the bird always chirped in the morning in anticipation of the sun to rise. This bird is the embodiment of hopefulness and optimism as it does not chirp because it was told that the sun would rise–it chirped because it believed that the sun would definitely come up.
I am and continue to remain hopeful just like the bird in that story.
Hope With a Dollop of Common Sense
I believe that when you are hopeful for something to happen, you have to have some common sense to balance it out as well. For example, if you believe that you can win a local hockey competition knowing that you have never played the sport, that is not likely to get you a win. However, practicing for a few months and learning the sport gives you the right validation to hope that you can win the competition. A literary example of someone who is exaggeratedly optimistic is Dr. Pangloss from the French Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire’s Candide ou l’Optimisme. When Dr. Pangloss was told that a volcano was in the center of Lisbon causing thousands of deaths, he says, “All that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.” Even the most “optimistic” people like Dr. Pangloss, need to think before they act.
If optimism were a scale, I’d hover somewhere in the middle. I am not like Dr. Pangloss who is hopeful because he believes that everything is just right, or the pessimistic quiz player who believes that he will fail because he has lost one game. I am hopeful because deep inside, I am an inherently positive person. Just as the famous poet Emily Dickinson said, “Hope is a thing with feathers,” I want to use my optimism–with a large share of common sense– to soar to new heights with my wings of hope, a pinnacle that I can never reach without Believing.
That’s why I am hopeful, and I hope I can always be hopeful.
Thank you.
—Sahil, Grade 8
What did you think? Do share any comments or your best life advice with Sahil.
This was well written, Sahil! The optimism coupled with common sense is definitely a winning combination.
Well done, Sahil!