The (Temporary) Optimist

**DISCLAIMER: I HATE TRUMP. It has nothing to do with conservative versus liberal, or Republican vs Democrat (and yes, I think there is a huge difference between those two categorizations). My personal political beliefs are probably somewhere in the middle depending on the issues. You can be left or right or central or Republican or Democrat. That's fine. We need healthy political discourse and unique viewpoints so we can come to the best solutions and decisions possible. No, it's not his political views. I despise Trump as a person, as an individual, as a human being. I think he's  really bad person. He encourages and inflames hate. He feeds of it and builds his support with it. He is disrespectful to women, to minorities and to those who are differently-abled and to so many other groups. I'm sure the mere fact that I used the word differently-abled and not handicapped or retarded would cause him to make fun of me. And that's exactly the problem. I remember when he...

 For most of my life, I have been a realist. Some would probably call me a pessimist. I generally expect the worst from people, organizations and events. It's not that I think everything is terrible or that the world is in chaos, it's just that I find that expecting the worst means no bad surprises, and if something good happens, well great! I'm sure there is some deep psychological explanation, like the fact that I work in risk management and am trained to look for risks and issues, or that something happened when I grew up that made me think this way. Who cares? The point is, that is how I think and view the world.  Or it was. I recently turned 34. Amid COVID, an unstable and bifurcated political system and society and a world facing serious ecological and environmental issues. I recently even started a program in Artificial Intelligence  because I am honestly worried about the state of the world and think it's one of few things that can get us out of the mess we have...