Sandcastles: For the Optimist's Club Competition

Sandcastles

The following was entered in 2014 for a speaking competition Optimist Club of Chapel Hill, found at www.ch-optimists.org. The prompt for a five minute speech was to answer the prompt: "How My Optimism Will Help Me Press on to 'Greater Achievements of the Future'". I delivered it twice, coming third in the semifinals.

I love foreign myths and fairy tales. They’re just wonderful. You can always tell what a culture values from their stories, and my favorite fairytale of all is a traditional Chinese story, called ‘The Farmer and his Luck’. It goes something like this;

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who lived a pleasant life with his adolescent son. One day, his fastest horse jumped over the fence, and ran away. The townspeople took pity on him and told him ‘Such bad luck’. The farmer responded ‘Perhaps’.

A day later, the horse returned, with two wild horses it had befriended while away. The townspeople were envious. ‘Such good luck!’ they said. Again, all the farmer said was ‘Perhaps’.

The next day, his son tried to tame the new horses. He was thrown off, and watched helplessly as they ran away, clutching a broken leg.. ‘Such bad luck!’ said the townspeople.  ‘Perhaps’.

Later, the army came to the farmer’s door, and demanded to see his son, so they could recruit him for the war far away. But when they saw his broken leg, they let him be. And so the son avoided the draft. Was the farmer lucky? Perhaps.

This is a wonderful story about the unpredictable nature of life. I remind myself of this story numerous times a day, no matter the day. Try adding events to the farmer’s life, see how easy it is to change his luck. There are longer versions. The story ridicules the idea of trying to understand good and bad luck in the present, and it shows the wisdom of optimism.

Optimism is being open to the idea that, like in the farmer’s tale, the result of your luck may turn your luck. What is good and bad in the present may shift, and one should be calm, and open, to what will come. It is about understanding that things can still be wonderful in the future, no matter how you understand the present.

I often have to re-access what I deem as good and bad aspects of my present and past life. All people do; a teacher you initially disliked for their rigorous methods may in retrospect have been the most important. The monthly camping trips I abhorred when I was younger gave me a very real appreciation for warm water and modern comforts. I relinquish my ability to judge the trips as ‘bad’. They might have been wonderful, maybe not in themselves, at the time. but as a part of my larger life, for making me grateful. -------

Optimism is appreciation. By not valuing what you have, everything you lose will become a theft from what you took for granted. Whether a musical instrument collecting dust, a friend losing contact, or memory, losing strength. The days with, will be ignored, and the days without, will be a brutal robbery.

For pessimists, opportunities become pointless, events become chores, and people become distractions. If we as modern, moral thinkers agree that sexism and racism are unacceptable because of their broad judgement of individual people, then why do we not understand pessimism as the broad judgement of everything; all moments, all people, all places, and all things?

In the past, I mistook my mother’s optimism as tiring foolishness. I was cynical when she suggested, years ago, that we apply to join a ship of college students traveling across the entire world for a semester. It seemed too far-fetched. It was tiring to even get ones hopes up. She proved me wrong, and took my brothers and I aboard, as students… twice.

I was cynical again when she encouraged me to apply to my dream school. Not only am I now graduating from this school after five years, but my brothers are receiving their educations there as well.

These are easily the most important aspects of my education; I saw optimism at work, rather than dismissed in the laziness of pessimism. It’s why I will press on to greater achievements; because I will value the past, appreciate the present, and recognize opportunities in the future; no matter how far fetched. And because I will try. I am the child of an optimist, and I am trying to inherit.

As my final thought, let me tell you the exact moment that the story of the farmer clicked with me. I was building a sandcastle. And the tide was rising. You don’t see adults building sandcastles, but I think that maturity comes from recognizing and indulging in the beauty of temporary things. The appeal of sandcastles comes from them being pretty, and small, and lasting no longer than the next high tide. If they were larger, and lasted longer, we’d have to call them castles; they’d cost a fortune, and take years, not minutes, to build. They’d have dungeons, and monarchs, and bloody sieges. But sandcastles don’t, they can’t. It’s in the name. And that’s why we love them. The farmer didn’t panic when the sandcastles of his luck washed away. He understood there’d be another.That’s when it made sense to me.

I appreciate life’s sandcastles, from friends, to beliefs, to moments. I try and understand the optimism of the farmer, every time he said the word ‘Perhaps’.

Thank you for having me.