BE AN OPTIMIST.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 44, 10 April 1930, Page 10

BE AN OPTIMIST.

YES! LET'S!

(By "Senex.") What a lot of us are prone to groTfl and grouse about the state of things as they areT.And what's the good of it anyhow?

We all.know that ''/though we certainly have had wonderfully fine weather (grudgingly) the whole country is crying out' for fain." Certainly this latter statement is true, but as everyone knows it. without" being told so, why be always paying so? Tie ground.lS dry, very dry, and •when it does rain, it will be wet, Very wet; but why make such a bawling over it? If every farmer, market gardener, amateur gardener in the Dominion were to combine and make one enormous bawl "We want Tain/ •would that bring down, enough moisture' io grow one oat,-One Brussels Sprout, one antirri-hnum (whatever these funnily named . creatures, may be). No, of course even such an impossible combination of grousers couldn't alter what is. Tfheh why not be an Optimist and •cheerfully' expatiate on the lovely weather we've had, and smile over it, and leave it at that, instead of dropping one's jaw down waist-deep, and .."beginning to howl about tihe appalling! need, for bad weather.

When the rain (which to mosj of «s signifies bad weather) -'DOES come, how long will you be, Mr. Man, before you start to bawl about that form of "fearful 'bad weather, old man, I'm wringing wet to the .skin." ■ Those fearful and wonderful experts, the statisticians, can, an no doubt havealready done so, tell us -how many f arm-j «rs theTe are in the country, and how in numbers they compare with any «ther of the learned professions such. A3 dentists, : dominies, or~ dolls' eye- % makers. A careful study of these weird statistical tables will assure even you, Mr. Sceptic> that there are quite enough farmers in this Dominion to do all the growling that is needed about the weather, and certainly there is not £he slightest need for you and I to lend t&em any assistance —they can and will carry out their job well and faithfully. l>id you ever know & farmer who, in ;fibis particular matter, was not an absolute professional grumbler? Then why add your puny mite to the magnificent and ever-swelling chorus of growls and grumblings. Cheer up, man, be an optimist! Do you want Tain? Well, it will rain, sooner or later, and neither you nor any other grumbler will make a. bit of difference to it, Do you want toe weather? Do you want it warmer? Do you like coldeT breezes? Do you want any sort of weather at all? Well> if you wait long enough you'll get just exactly what you want; and it's not a ifeit of good grousing about what you're getting now—it won't alter for all the growling and gqroiasin on earth.! So why not be an optimist and not growl at all*

And so with, the ordinary affairs of Efe. "Wiiat 's the use of growlitigf An<l yet to quote an ancient popular song "Everybody's doin' it." And how much good does it do? How many of you who read the philosophic inusings of this time-worn and experienced, •cribe ever xeally consider how much

•better- things -are1, titan they might be, and what proportion of you is tShere who do their bit to bring the "joygerm" into the place it ought to occupy I and in other words comply with injunction to "Be An, Optimist." After all, things igenerally might be muelh worse, especially if one had one's deserts. _For example, few of us axe in goal! But what a lot of us deserve to be!

"Why do we growl about paying our Council rates and.Radio Licenses? We only do that on one day in' the year, and we have 364 other days on whiclh. we haven't got to pay 'em and can be joyful so far as tihese particular items are concerned. Yet instead of that we worry for 3Gi days and axe-pleased with ourselves and at ease on one day only which is the day on which, we hand over the cash. Even w&en things look tiieir very blackest, there is always smelthing to rejoice, ove^,' something that might have been worse —you who read, and I w&to write might have been "put to bed in a wooden overcoat, and tucked in with a shovel." But so far we have not so been treated. To growl only adds to the great sum total of human misery, and is just the sort of work suitable to that loathsome animal, the pessimist. It's a good old world after all, and we'll be making it a better one still if we do as advised and resolve to

BE AN" OPTIMIST.