The importance of optimism
“I don’t know if you’re brave or if you’re crazy,” said a fellow Fulbrighter to me after our quarantines had ended, “coming to a country where you don’t know anyone and you don’t know the language.” The comment caught me off-guard, but she was right: What on earth had I been thinking? Why did I agree to take on this incredibly daunting challenge, and who was I to think I could overcome it? I remember laughing before responding: “Maybe it’s a little bit of both.” Weirdly enough, this has become my mantra during my time in Taiwan, though I’ve never been too big a fan of the word “crazy” – instead, let’s call it “blindly optimistic.” Yeah, sure, that’s what I am. See, growing up in a small South Carolina town, I’d always had dreams of “making it,” though I was never quite sure what that meant. Did I want wealth, popularity, incomparable success? I thought so – after all, aren’t these the things that make people happy? Now, I believe that “making it” is actually just realizing you are more than all of the bad experiences you’ve had — and that you’re fully capable of making new memories
