Why be a pessimist when you can be an optimist? It's optimists who fight the good fight, even if there is little hope, while the pessimists sit back and indulge their shoulder-shrugging fetish for nihilism. The point is not to set out to change the world with some grandiose endeavor. The point is to do all that you reasonably can because it's the right thing to do; and that comes with its own deep satisfaction. It makes you feel better. You feel less helpless, less a talker of empty words, and more involved with the life around you. There's peace within yourself that comes with an earnest resolve to live life with a light step rather than a heavy stomp. The point then is to cleanse the mirror of your heart, and reflect back to the world a bit of good, just for the sake of doing so. The future will unfold as it will, whether we like what it brings or not. So act without any expectations of results; act just because your own "soul" is rewarded enough by the doing. And in the huge web of interconnections in the world we see and the one we don't, each little effort may synergize with others' and its effects become amplified. Like the butterfly flapping its wings.
— Gabriel Fenteany, January 21, 2016
