Optimism relies on personal responsibility

Recited at every gathering of Optimist Club members, the Optimist Creed spreads a positive message that inspires us to live well each day.

Optimist Club members know the Optimist Creed to be 10 tenets that propel us to think optimistically and live a positive lifestyle. However, when Christian D. Larson first penned the Optimist Creed in 1912 he wrote 12 tenets.  The last two are published here for your consideration:

• To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.
• To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side, so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

I like the last two lines for they ask you to do more than recite inspirational words.  The 11th line asks you to go into the world and demonstrate your positive nature through "great deeds;" hence, the projects that Optimist Clubs do in their communities.

The final statement, the 12th line of the original Optimist Creed, insists on personal responsibility.  When we accept that we are in charge of our own destiny and when we rise above worry and move forward to action, we will find positive energy and support from those around us, those who wish us well and those who want us to succeed.  You will find that support from your friends and colleagues in your local Optimist Club.

The Optimist Creed has been adopted by other groups, some who are using its message as a law of attraction: that good things come to those who will them to come to them.  That's okay.  If we all willed good things to come to us and then took the responsibility and action to make them happen, what a wonderful world this would be.