Yesterday at work, we interviewed a job candidate, and asked this woman to tell us about a decision that had been hard for her to make. She described coming into a fractious work environment with a lot of tension and mistrust between the existing team members. After several failed attempts to bring the group together, she came to a crossroads: give up and work like the rest of them in isolated hostility, or make one last attempt at unification? She chose the latter option, and this time, it worked. Walls came down, bonds were forged, harmony prevailed. I wanted to hire this woman based on this story alone. Not because she made a choice that proved successful, but because she made a choice based on nothing but hope when there was little cause to have any. The story may have been slicked up for the interview, but I really admired this woman's attitude.

To stay optimistic when there seems little reason to be, to keep going when there seems no point, to give people the benefit of the doubt when my instinct is otherwise - these are things I struggle with constantly, and there are too, too many people close to me waging that same internal war. Being cynical is easy and has less risk of failure - life certainly does suck a lot of the time and if you err on those odds you'll rarely be wrong. Staying positive is much more challenging. Optimists are often seen as fools, but are they really? Maybe it depends on where that optimism originates. It's one thing to be positive and perky when you don't know any better - ignorance really is bliss. But twice-bitten, battle-scarred, eyes wide open, yet still keeping hope alive and trudging on - that impresses me. I want to be one of those people.