Monday Morning Greetings 2026 #35 – A Recovering Optimist

“You are so optimistic that you could be falling out of the Empire State Building and, at the 50th floor, say, ‘So far, so good.’” Suhotra Swami once told me this. He was a very dedicated and learned disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda and a friend of mine. He was also a bit eccentric, with a great sense of humor. It may seem strange, but he once showed me a book of 101 insults and pointed out this one specifically for me. I loved it. Unfortunately, he passed away. But his joke has stayed with me because it captured something I recognized in myself: I am an optimist. But I have come to see that optimism can have two very different sides. One is psychological. It is simply a tendency to look at the bright side, to avoid dwelling on what is painful, and to believe that things will somehow work out. Like anything born of the modes of nature, this tendency has its strengths, but it also has its pitfalls. The other kind of optimism is spiritual. It is not based on the conviction that life will…