Being an optimist is difficult these days. Almost unnatural, given the relentlessly bad news.
Whether reading or watching the news we are assailed by it.
Look at today's moans;
'Global development being pushed back by more than twenty years'
'Tens of millions facing more poverty'
'Lack of tests for NHS staff'
'Society is addicted to alcohol'
And on it goes, enough to make you want to stay in bed with the bedclothes over your head.
I have always been an optimist, always convinced that the bad days make the good days better.
I wake up every morning, ready to get on with my life, to find plenty to do and think about and to be content with my lot.
And, why not?
I don't need to convince myself that I have enjoyed a happy and interesting life, and still do, despite the limitations of old age.
My outlook on life was moulded by my mother, how she coped with her long life.
Gwen was an optimist - just as well as she had to live through even worse times than we, her children.
War, hardship, illness, and the early death of Dad did not defeat her or dampen her optimism.
She was fortunate in having a loving family and being looked after for more than fifty years by my sister Dorothy, and she had Bert and me, but our memory of her was one of a happy, smiling lady.
Optimism is under strain for everyone these troubled days.
Mum and her generation, even in the desperate days of the first world war, were never forbidden to walk out of their home to see their family, never threatened with fines for breaking on-the-spot made laws. They got on with life in a way we now cannot.
I find it amazing that, even as a still reasonably active 93 year old, I cannot break the restrictions on my llfe by simply driving my scooter out of Sunrise for a trip around Roath Park Lake.
I don't condone it, but I appreciate the pressure on younger people to defy orders and not to be overwhelmed by today's pervading gloom and pessimism.
If ever there was a time to remain optimistic, this is it.
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