Ronald Reagan's Best Story: Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?

Ronald Reagan tells the story of a couple of parents who had two sons, identical twins, but they were different as day and night when it came to their personalities and to their outlook on life, because one was an eternal optimist. It didn't matter what happened in his life, he always looked at the bright side of things. The other was just a dyed in the wool pessimist. It didn't matter how good the person was, Things were he always saw some impending disaster looming over the horizon, and so both boys had to deal with things in in such a way that sometimes. they were disappointed. One, because he thought everything was going to be good and it wasn't always. The other, because he thought everything would be bad and he missed out on the good. So the parents got to talking about it. Christmas was coming up and they hit upon a solution that they believed would help their boys become more realistic in their outlook. They did, they certainly did. didn't want to discourage the optimistic one from being optimistic, but they wanted him to be realistic about it. And the pessimist, they agreed, he needed a little bit of work because he needed to enjoy life a little bit more and see that life could be very good. And so here's what they did. At Christmas time, they got two rooms. One was actually a shed. The other was a room. And in that room, they. filled it with toys that were just the delights of boys their age. Everything that a boy could possibly want or imagine was in that room. And then in the shed outside they just filled it with horse droppings from a nearby stable and they filled it pretty good. And so what they were going to do is they were going to give the room full of toys to the pessimist so he could see there was good in life. But they were going to give this shed filled with the horse droppings to the optimist so that he could see that sometimes there were things in life that were not actually good and he was just going to have to learn to deal with that. And so Christmas morning came and they, they directed each boy to, to their, to their different areas. One to the room filled with toys for the pes for the pessimist and then the shed filled with horse droppings for the optimist And they sat back and just watched and listened. Well, sure enough, in just a few short moments, they heard two different reactions. One was a boy just sobbing uncontrollably. The other was laughter, gleeful joy coming from the other direction. But what surprised him was that it was the pessimist, the boy in the room of toys that was crying. So they went in and they asked him, what is wrong? Don't you like your presence? And he said, yes, I, I, I love my presence. And they said, so what seems to be the problem? And he said, do you see this toy here? This is my favorite one. It's going to break someday. And this one over here, I really like it, but it's battery operated and the batteries are eventually going to run down. And so, he just went around the room and pointed out the flaws and the potential problems that each toy was going to have. Well, the parents left a little bit exasperated from that room, and they went out to the shed where the, the gleeful laughter was occurring, and they, they looked into the shed, and there was their optimist flinging up the horse droppings up into the air saying, we, we, and they said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm looking for the pony. Well, you have to admit there, there, there's something to somebody who can look for the, look at the good side, even when things are bad. And there is probably something to be said for the one that even when things are going great, can, can be wide open eyes, wide open enough to realize that it's not going to last forever. But the two. personalities were serious flaws. Because you can't just look at everything as a pessimist, and nor can you just look at everything as, as an optimist. You have to be realistic. If everything that you see is, is gloom and disaster, then you're not going to enjoy the blessings that God has given to you. But if everything is just okay, then you're going to find there are times in your life where you're just surrounded by filth, but you think that's just fine and dandy. And, and that's going to allow you to do several things, one of which is to begin to tolerate sin, something which God does not permit. And it also will prevent you from solving problems. So while the optimistic personality and the pessimistic personality definitely have their strengths, they also have their weaknesses. And so what we need in each situation is a dose of reality. As servants of God, we're going to bear certain types of fruit in our service to God. This is what Jesus said in Luke chapter 6 and verse 43. He said, No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. And so it's true that we need to work very diligently on making sure that our life is a production of things that are good. Not only good in our service to God that will be pleasing to him, but also in a corresponding way and in a way that will be pleasing to others, that will be helpful to other people. And if we're just bearing bad fruit, well, our life's going to be pretty miserable. It's going to be miserable for us. It's going to be miserable for those around us. And so you need to step back. We all do from time to time and determine, am I producing good fruit or am I producing bad fruit? Because Jesus conclusion was, if you're producing good fruit, that's coming from the heart, and you're on the right path. But if you're producing bad fruit, well, that's from the heart as well. But it also means you're on the wrong path. And in fact, it may be a path that does eventually take you to destruction. Kind of a self fulfilling prophecy for the pessimist in us, isn't it? And then he said this, each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People don't pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. The good man brings out good things out of the good stored up in his heart. And the evil man brings evil out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his, his mouth speaks. Well, it's very clear from this that we do need to have a positive outlook on life. We need to have a positive direction. And so, generally speaking, we are going to be very much optimistic. And what's not to be optimistic about? If we're in a good relationship with God, we're going to heaven. And the things that do occur in life that are, that are difficult, they're just incidents on the road to heaven, aren't they? But if you're a pessimist, it's very likely that you're just not going to try very hard at anything. You're going to be convinced that, that doom and gloom is around the corner for everything, so why even try? When you do try to do good things, it's something bad's just going to happen, so, so why not just let it go? And, and again, we can see, I hope, in, in both instances, the need for We do live in a world that has a lot of problems. And as a result of that, we need to have our eyes open enough to these problems so that we can see the dangers that are ahead. But we want to do that in such a way that we can figure out how we can get some kind of a solution for the problems so that things can work out good, so that we don't have to live in filth and, and squalor. And again, we don't want to just have rose colored glasses on everything so that even, even filth and squalor look good. We don't need to have a good relationship with evil, for that is evil in and of itself. Romans chapter one talks about people who not only get in sin, involved with sin, but also who approve of those who are conducting themselves in a sinful manner. This is not good fruit, this is bad fruit. But the problem is it has the appearance of being good. As a matter of fact, in our modern world, tolerance seems to be a great virtue. And when it comes to things like race and wealth and just different social situations, Tolerance is good. We need to be tolerant of people who are in different situations from us, but we cannot be tolerant of sin. In the book Habakkuk, the, the prophet Habakkuk says your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, talking to God. And then he says this, you cannot tolerate sin. Well, if God cannot tolerate sin, neither should we. And so again, we don't need to be so unrealistic in life that we just put up with evil behavior, because evil behavior will eventually affect us all. And evil behavior always has a penalty for the innocent. And we need to be vigilant enough and have enough compassion in our hearts to be trying to protect the innocent. But if all we do is look at the bad side of life, anytime somebody says it's a good day and you point out to them 10 reasons why it's a bad day, well after a while good people aren't going to want to be around you much. anymore. Even bad people aren't going to want to be around you much. You're going to find yourself a very lonely individual with that type of a point of view. And the other thing is, you're going to forget to enjoy your blessings, which God gives to you, so that you can be pleased with the good things that he has. And if we're so pessimistic that we view our blessings as potential problems, then, then that's a problem, isn't it? We need to enjoy this life. We need to enjoy the rightful things that God has given to us to enjoy. And we need to, to let other people see that joy. Because once they see that, they're going to want that too, because a lot of people are joy deficient, aren't they? They may not feel like pessimists. They may feel like realists. That's one of the problems with pessimism, is those who are truly pessimistic usually don't recognize that in themselves. They just feel like they're being realistic. But if you're not enjoying your blessings, if you're not attracting others to God and to Christ with your joyful view of life, then you're going to waste a lot of the opportunities that you have. And you're also going to be depressed in your life, and God doesn't want that. I want to say it again. We're going to heaven. We should be optimistic and not pessimistic, but we need to be realistic enough. that when we see problems that we can identify them as problems. Take caution, take guard if we need to, but then try and figure out how we can correct those problems because we're optimistic enough to know that if God is for us, no one can be against us. And so our problems can be solved, but we have to have a realistic viewpoint of them to recognize them as problems in the first place or we're just going to end up eventually end up in a shed filled with horse droppings thinking that everything is just dandy. God doesn't want that for us any more than he wants us to live in a world where everything is just gloom and doom and impending disaster. God wants us to be good servants of his. He wants us to produce good fruit in this life. He wants us to be optimistic enough that we can draw others to us by that optimistic personality. But in the, in the end, what he's really wanting us to draw people to is to He and to Christ. Because they're the ones that are going to save a world that has a lot of problems. They're the ones that are going to be able to pull us out of our difficulties. They're the ones that are going to be able to give us hope and allow us to live in faith and be encouraged with the fact that even if times are a little bit difficult now, someday this world will be over and there will be heaven and we want to be there and we want to help as many other people be there as well as we possibly can. We're not going to be saved by, by, by our goodness or by the fruit that we bear, but we'll be rewarded for the good deeds that we do. And we'll surely be punished by the evil deeds that we do. And so again, have an optimistic viewpoint of life, yes, but be realistic enough to be able to solve or help solve all the problems and difficulties that life throws at us. Then you'll be useful to others, you'll be useful to God, and someday you'll have a home with him in heaven. Well, I'm Rick Bloodworth. This is the Common Sense Christian channel, and I truly appreciate your tuning in today. Hope that you'll come back. If you liked this hit that like button. Share it with others that you think that might be benefited from it in some way, if, if you feel like that might be the case. But until next time, I pray that God will bless you richly as you seek to serve He in Christ to the very best of your ability. God bless.