...I believe I have accomplished my goal of discerning the two mentalities introduced in the beginning of the tapestry: Pessimism and Optimism. The similarities between the two is that it's all in your mentality and how you approach a certain situation: a pessimist sees the situation as negative, where as an optimist tries to find a silver lining in their problem. An example of an optimist would be Dewey Bozella, who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of an old woman. Dewey began writing for help from the Innocence project everyday, knowing that eventually they would answer his call and help him become a free man. Instead of taking the easy way out (saying he was guilty to get out of sing sing prison), he instead chose that his life would be decided by how he lived it, not where. An example of pessimism would be in the case of Christopher Wallace (A.K.A Biggie Smalls). In Biggie's song "Suicidal Thoughts" (the album was symbolically called Ready to Die and was the first and last album he put out while still alive), he contemplates suicide and that he just can't deal with his fame and street life, killing himself at the end of the song. This shows that Biggie had very low self-esteem, and was willing to give up all hope in life, rather than try and persevere through his parental troubles and drug problems. Another example of pessimism was Barry Bonds, who was insecure and jealous of other Baseball players, so he began to cheat by using HGH and other Performance Enhancing Drugs. It's safe to say that without optimism, many inventions or fabulous works of art wouldn't exist yet. After all, think of what would happen if people like Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Thomas Edison just quit and packed it in when things didn't go their way. In contrast; with the absence of pessimism in our world, I believe our earth would be a better place. Suicide rates would drop, and we'd be a much happier, nicer planet as a result.
During this project, I found that optimism has strong ties to perseverance; and that if you're optimistic about the result of a situation, you're much more likely to show perseverance in your goal to solve your problem. Whether the story is fictional like in "Dancer" by Vickie Sears, or a real life story like the plight Dewey Bozella had to endure, there is a direct correlation in how you view the situation, and how hard you work to turn the situation from negative to positive. Otherwise, what's the point in setting out to resolve your problems if you already have a negative perspective about the issue? This can-do attitude can be shown by anyone: Role Models, Athletes, Musicians, even everyday people like you and I. The only question left to ask is, are you an optimist, or a pessimist?
