On Being a Middle-Aged Optimist

"At 50 a man can be an ass without being an optimist but not an optimist without being an ass."

When we are young and immortal, the world holds nothing but possibility. We see the world as what it can be.

By the time we're in our middle years, it seems prudent to look at the world as it really is.

Even so, every man grown into "mature" adulthood still harbors that brash young man, dreaming of how it will be when the world is at our feet.

Best to keep the young man under wraps. But keep him.

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