I'm not just talking about regard, I'm talking about planning. I'm talking about damage control.

Subjectively, those people I have seen as most optimistic tend to be ill-prepared for when things go to shit, or even don't go as planned. They suffer a worse loss, measurable in dollars or time, compared to those who are realistic or pessimistic.

Optimism is truly inspirational

Maybe this is why I have always found motivational speakers of every creed so distasteful.

- fake it 'til you make it.

Been faking it for a while now, on the edge of 'making it' I think. ( _refugee_ , P-Words on Pedestals) Cash Rules Everything Around Me, C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bill y'all. But faking sucks. I did an exercise to help identify personal values almost a year ago with my counselor. Number 1, above literally everything else on a big pyramid of 'things OB values' was truth. I'm faking it, because it gets things done, but it's still a lie. The big things that scare the shit out of me, make me existentially worried, none of those issues have suddenly resolved themselves. The wolves are still pacing just outside the firelight, waiting. Every school of thought I've read about that considers the things that I worry about basically says 'Find something else to fill your time' which I read as 'Put on a blindfold so you don't have to see the firing squad' except for some of the most nihilistic buddhist apocrypha, which says to cultivate the stillness of a corpse, comfortable in it's grave.