Last year as one of my school assignments, I had to write a speech based on one of five quotes and present the speech in English class. The one I took: "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein.

As an random point to note, the further back from me my classmates were sitting, the lower the mark they gave me. Guess I should have spoken louder.

A long time ago, in a country far, far away, an old guy named Albert Einstein once said something. In fact, he said a lot of things, many of which are famous quotes of his which have survived the test of time and now have the honour of being used as speech topics in English classes. Before I go on to talk about one of those quotes, however, I shall first talk about the person who said it.

I assume you all know who Einstein was. He was a random famous scientist dude whose hairstyle was a fashion disaster and, according to a certain Physics teacher, sat all day in his armchair doing nothing but think. At least, that's what he seemed to be doing. He could have been daydreaming for all you know.

He also happens to be dead.

But that's about all you need to know about Albert, and I shall stop insulting him now. If my calculations are correct, he would just about now be figuratively rolling in a figurative grave.

Anyway, he once said, "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

You're probably heard by now way too many times for your own good how the people who live as though nothing is a miracle are the pessimists, the ones who see the glass as half empty; and those who live as though everything is a miracle are the optimists and thus those who see the glass as half full.

I disagree.

Notice the use of the words 'everything' and 'nothing' instead of 'most things' and 'few things'. The people who live as though everything is a miracle don't just see the glass as half full of water. They see it as half full of water and half full of oxygen-containing air, both of which are essential to life. And then, they pour out the water carefully into a measuring cylinder and discover the amazing fact that the glass wasn't just half full, but 50.0000021% full.

As a side note, I know that measuring cylinders can't measure that accurately, but that was an imaginary measuring cylinder, and imaginary measuring cylinders can do anything.

For those who think that nothing is a miracle, they are on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. They see the glass as half empty, filled with water that does not even match up to the pristine, clean, pure and contaminant free standard of NEWater, one of our country's four national taps. And they see the other half of the glass, full of air that is only 21% oxygen.

So there you have it - the extreme pessimists, and the extreme optimists. Who are these people, anyway?

The extraordinary optimistic people are rare. They are the kind who can find something good in everything, no matter how bad. Car accident? They get insurance. Family member died? They get their inheritance. World War III? That saves the overcrowding problem. Pet hamster died? Well, now we can have roast hamster for dinner tonight.

They may be perpetually happy, yes, but this also makes them insensitive people. Who, after all, can like someone who jumps with joy at his father's funeral, just because he knows he's now rich? We all need a certain amount of pessimism in our lives. If we are forever happy, not only could you hurt others' feelings, but you could also end up behaving very much like a certain purple dinosaur... and before you know it, you find yourself in the Institute of Mental Health.

However, being a total pessimist is by no means a good thing either. If you spend your whole life going around the place thinking that you're doomed, and thinking up the most effective way to commit suicide just in case, you'll probably end up in the Institute of Mental Health as well... and for all you know, your roommate could be some idiot who's always smiling and acting like Barney the Dinosaur.

There are few who fall into these two categories of people. Most of us are just the normal kind. Some things are good. Some things are bad. And we behave as the situation calls for. To us, the glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just a glass containing atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, and we can't see what all the fuss is about.

But the optimists and pessimists do exist. In fact, more of us are pessimists. All you have to do is walk into a classroom before a test to hear a hundred different variations of "I'm going to fail". It is true that many of us do fail just as we predict. That is not pessimism. It's ESP. But there are also those who do not fail, even though they said they would. That is pessimism.

There are more than two ways to live your life, no matter what ol' Einie said. You can be crazily optimistic, crazily pessimistic, simply optimistic and pessimistic, or normally normal.

How you live your life is up to you. You can spend it daydreaming in some armchair somewhere, or you can spend it mugging away for an upcoming test which you predict you're going to fail anyway. Or you can do whatever else you want, as long as it falls within the natural laws of science.

Your life is yours to live, however you want. And your future is what you make of it. So make it a good one.

Thank you.

Home

All the content on this site © 2004 A.S.Q