This thought came to my mind while watching the various programs on the news channels about the Optimistic Indian Youth today.

We all are pretty optimistic about the future of the country, about building a strong society, about becoming a developed nation, about creating a large economy, etc

Now we need to properly ‘define’ this Optimism, and have that definition embedded into our minds.

When I asked some of my friends about what ‘Optimism’ means to them, the answer I got was, ‘We strongly believe that the future will be better or perhaps even the best’.

Well, I am pretty allergic to that word ‘believe’ or ‘hope’, because it sounds like, since everything ‘looks’ good today, we ‘hope’ that this feeling of goodness continues, and leave it to the ‘fate’ or in the hands of ’somebody else’, which we again ‘hope’ will be ‘better’ or the ‘best’. In other words, this insulates one’s ’self’ from participation in the future building activity.

What really suites me is the word ‘action’ or ‘work’.

So may I request all the Indian youth to alter the definition of ‘optimism’ about the future of India as follows.

We are optimistic about the bright future of India not because we ‘hope’ so, but because ‘WE will make it so’. We are optimistic because ‘WE’ are building that strong India of our dreams.

Optimism based on ‘hope’ or ‘faith’ has an element of uncertainty in it.

On the other hand, optimism based on ‘confidence’ and ‘awareness’ about one’s own strength is pretty deterministic.

To put it the other way, we should be optimistic not because we hope for easy questions in the examinations that are to come, but because we KNOW that we have covered the complete syllabus and are confident of scoring a distinction in the examinations :)