The rules

First off, I will never take the "It-could-always-be-worse" way out. It's cheap and it's meaningless and it does no good whatsoever.

Yes, I know things could always be worse and I should count my blessings. Obviously. There's always some poor schmo who's suffered a lot more than me. But how, exactly, does thinking about him make me more of an optimist? It doesn't. In fact, it makes me feel worse about myself, because I'm using someone else's suffering to make myself feel better. Try this on: "There are guys getting frostbite from sleeping under the bridge because they have no homes. Ahh. I feel all better now."

I suspect, when I hear this advice from someone, that what they are really saying is, "Just shut up. Your perceived hardships are boring me and besides, I have it much, much worse than you."

And that brings me to the other prominent advice, which is "just stop whining. Don't complain."

This another thing I will not do. Not because it sounds like a bad idea, but because I may just be physically unable. I started life as a journalist, having reached adolescence just as the hippie era peaked. Whining is in my blood. You might as well ask me to change my DNA. Besides, how can you ever correct a problem if you're forbidden to speak of it?

Instead, my plan will be to look at my own daily life and try to find some way to reset my thinking so that I can get out of bed in the morning. I will try to find the pony in the manure, the lemonade in the lemons, the...did I mention I also have a rule against cliches?

It promises to be a slow process. But first I have to figure out just what an optimist really is. For that, I'll consult some experts.