When the optimist sets himself to do a job he does not begin by picking out one that looks easy. He tackles the first one that comes along. If he is defeated, he tries the next, and so on.
Now most jobs, like most answers in arithmetic, are well within the possibilities of the cheerful and daring. When a truly hard one comes, the habit of continuing to try is a tremendous factor in solving it; and the world is often surprised by the spectacle of victory at a time when defeat was considered inevitable.
“Who would have thought he had it in him?” is a cry as old as the world. The optimist does not, in truth, have it in him, but he is powered by his belief in the support of the universe when a person works hard and cheerfully – a belief that seems justified at least seven times out of ten by results.
Optimist after optimist, in the lists of time, does the impossible, they tame it, unmask it, and behold! It was possible.
