Foolish optimists

I recently spent ten weeks in San Francisco as part of a startup pre-accelerator.



This was one of the shorter periods I've spent in the city, but it's probably been the one that has engendered the most growth. I've learned about my strengths, my areas for growth, my fears, and my hopes.



I've also learned that I really, really like optimists. People who have a seemingly endless well of energy, curiosity, and hope.



Above all, I love foolish optimists. People who look in the face of convention and shrug, or better yet, laugh. Convention is a tide that carries each of us to our deathbeds unless we dare to shift the direction of our course. Foolish optimists are those who dare.



Scott Belsky writes [1]:

Imagine, for a moment, that all your self-doubts are simply a function of society's immune system, designed to extinguish nonconforming actions. [...] There can be only so much innovation and change in a world that runs on consistency and people falling in line.



When I take pause and look at the world around me, I sometimes get a strange feeling. It's the feeling that comes with the realization that everything I can touch, see, and hear was once but an idea.



A seed watered with the right elements grows into a fully fledged life. An idea tempered with the right elements becomes something formidable.



So here's to the foolish optimists, who take their fledgling ideas and let them grow.



[1] from here