Dante Optimism

What is your optimism?

You know, this blog is called “Dante’s Optimism”. Recently, I was thinking: What does that really mean? It means, this is my take…or my way of expressing my “optimism”.

Of course, this means you have your own optimism. You’re optimistic about things, right? You gotta be. Something has to get you out of bed. So, what I want to do is launch a new series that is completely made by you, my Optimists. I want you to tell me what you’re optimistic about. What is your optimism?

How will this work? Well, you can comment on this post (or the page dedicated to collecting feedback). I want a story, but it doesn’t have to be. Just a few sentences is fine. Speak how you want to speak. Say it how you want to say it. This blog is my way of saying it. You might have a video. Poem. Dance.

Anyway, let me know. Then, I will publish them. I will do it either here or the newsletter (I’m leaning towards the newsletter). The post will be titled something like this: “Mary’s Optimism”. I’ll figure out the people with the same name but, you know, it’s perfect. It’s yours. That’s your viewpoint. You can share it with your close ones. I also like this idea of people reading these views and feeling inspired.

It’s sort of like the Tuesday Testimony feature, right?

So, since this feature is run when I get feedback, I have to wait on you. If the Optimists speak up, we can get this started. Again, I’m leaning towards making it a newsletter exclusive, but it might depend on how much optimism I get. If it’s enough to do something weekly, then it’ll be on the blog. If it’s not a lot, then it’s a newsletter posting.

Huh, I think I just figured out something. My blog will contain weekly material and the newsletter would contain monthly material. I can do that. So, to get the full experience, you would need to be linked to both. Ha! Sorry; I want people on this newsletter. Those of you that have been reading this blog know I rarely push things like this.

But, anyway, share your optimism today!

Optimistic News: New but old series

Let’s try this again. Another weekly news feature. Shake my head.

  • No, really, first I had Weekly News, which was the first featured post ever on this blog.
  • Then, I did “Good News Friday” Lord. I called myself playing on the “Good Friday” theme by putting “News” inside. Okay.
  • Then, I knew things were bad when I launched “Fearless Friday”.

I’ve done it daily too.

  • Daily Good Stuff had, among other things, positive stories in the early strong days of the series.
  • I did Daily Good News, which was essentially a spin-off of Daily Good Stuff. Nobody liked reading that. Nobody. My goodness.
  • It was sort of part of the “Daily Positive” series where, each day, I would post some random positive thing whether news, quotes, or whatever.

So, like I said, HERE WE GO AGAIN. But, I think this time I got it.

So, the only real difference between the other weekly news stuff is the title. It’s lining up with the blog’s name (it’s a better look for uniformity).

I spent a great deal of time choosing the name. I did “positive” and “good” news in the past because that’s usually what people look for. If you do a typical search online, you’ll notice “optimistic news” really doesn’t do as well as “good news” or “positive news”.

So then, why did I go with the least popular? Why put myself at risk to not get as many views as possible? There are potential reasons.

For one, I simply love the word “optimism” and the variations like “optimist” and “optimistic”. I really do. When I renamed this blog, I just really…optimism really spoke to me. So, I had to go with it. And, as I really promote the word in these recent days, I really have come to know that I truly care about that word. It’s a word that isn’t used often, but it’s really better than the synonyms you’ll find. One word that usually replaces it is “hope”. Like, “I hope it works out” vs “I’m optimistic it’ll work out”. But, you don’t really hear that second sentence, do you? Exactly.

Another reason why I named this feature the way I did was to build a uniform look with the blog’s name. It may not have been a big deal, but I thought it was needed. So, there you go.

As for losing out on potential views, I actually don’t think I will. I couldn’t tell you why I feel this way. I just do. Maybe it’s because I don’t care. Like, I will write about what I want to write about and be at peace with how it all looks. I’m not really in the mood to change things up. I love this word and I’m sticking to it. I could be optimistic that the views will come. But, I’m not. If they come, great. If not, fine.

Each week, I’ll share a couple of stories that will hopefully help us feel better or…more optimistic about things. What’s that saying: Restore faith in humanity.

If you also paid attention to the way I am building my newsletter, then you also picked up how similar the content is to this new feature.

So, as you can see, I am unifying the blog and the newsletter in some ways. I am also trying to really focus and hone in on a particular style of blogging for this blog. Really, I’m doing a lot more focus on the “Optimism” part. I have to let other things go from this blog that don’t directly line up with pure optimism.

As for the day I will post the news…hm…my original news thing posted on Saturdays (or was it Fridays?). Eventually I moved to Fridays. I did some daily stuff. You already saw my mini rant at the start of the post. Now, I have Tuesday Testimony, which really seems to draw the most reaction, I’ve noticed but that’s not what this post is about. Heavens.

No, okay so I will launch this on Mondays. Well, either Mondays or Sundays. The idea is to start the week off with that mindset. Just like, with the newsletter, I want the month to start off right. See that? They work together nicely.

So, I hope you enjoy the Optimistic News, my Optimists. Let’s make sure to remember that there is good going on in this world, despite what you hear or don’t hear. Let’s try to remain optimistic about things, as hard as it may be. This blog is my expression of optimism. What’s yours?

Love: Can you earn love?

Basically a year later and I’m adding a new entry to the Love series. Since I’ll be making references to my previous posts, I will link you to the category dedicated to this topic. I suggest you read through the other posts.

The Love series.

Now, let’s begin.

I ask the question of “can you be lovable?” but it might not be in the way you expect. See, I’m not asking if you yourself can be lovable. I’m asking if we, as a people, can be lovable because, as you know, we are to love others. We love our family, friends, and enemies. We love God and ourselves. Everybody gets loved.

So, but, can we…earn this love? That’s my question.

It’s not a question of if we deserve it. That’s not quite where I’m going. I’m saying, can we do something on our end to bring out the love of others?

At first, this seems like a simple “yes”. I strongly believe it’s “yes” but…and by now, you know I always have a but. I mean that with one or two “T’s”. Anyway, I think we can earn love, but I don’t know if that’s something we should be doing.

See, if we earn love, that means somebody may not be doing their job of loving regardless of what you do or who you are. See what I mean? Like, if I’m a complete jerk to everybody in the office, I may not earn love from others. However, I venture to say it doesn’t matter if we earn love or not. We are supposed to be loved, as we are supposed to love everyone.

Ah, but I see what you’re saying. It can be hard to love people who go all out making sure they treat you like the scum of the earth. But, again, we are supposed to show love to our enemies. Now look, this doesn’t mean we just allow the hurt and hate to consume us.

That’s where I know I gotta explain because some of you didn’t hear the first part of this post.

The question then becomes how do you actually show love to enemies in such a way that it doesn’t appear to be like you’re letting things go like there’s no problem? It’s a combination of knowing what love is (I talked about this in the series already) and then projecting that love onto our enemies.

In fact, if we look at the primary definition of love as I wrote it, we see that you don’t actually need to have a personal relationship with someone to show them love. I think that’s what makes it really…easy. But hard. Ah…

Again, the cashier at the store, or your spouse. You can show them that same exact base love.

So, I think you get it, right? Like, loving someone does not mean you put up with their foolishness. If anything, you simply don’t resent the foolishness. You forgive the foolishness.

So, if we go back to my question of earning love, it’s a sad reality that we actually do earn love, but we’re not supposed to.

Put it like this: We did nothing…NOTHING to earn Jesus coming down to sacrifice His life for us. We didn’t live a certain life as humanity and Jesus was like “they got enough love invested. Time to cash out.” If anything, it was the opposite. The world was so f’d up, Jesus was like, “I wanna help them out”.

But, the world is all about earning. Earn that paycheck to live your life. Right? Whatever it is, whether at the office, in the arena, on the stage, or wherever. We earn. So, naturally, we feel like we need to earn love.

Really, this post’s question is the result of a mindset we have of the opposite side of things. Since we believe our love is only given to those who earn it, we also believe we have to earn love.

But that’s just not right. If the Bible pushes so hard on loving everybody, regardless of how they treat you, then I strongly believe that people don’t earn love. This is something that just is. Loving someone should be as constant as breathing or blinking. It’s a part of our makeup, in a spiritual sense. Our DNA is to love.

You know how when you blink, you just blink. Heck, you blinked quite a bit while reading this post, right? It’s like an automated function, but then, you can override it. You can consciously blink or not. Just like breathing. It’s an automated function but you can stop breathing if you want or take a really deep or shallow breath.

That’s how loving should be. It should be an automated function, no matter what. You shouldn’t need to think about it. You should just love.

Here’s something: Let’s say you hold your breath or keep your eyes open. Things get…painful…right? Right. Because, even though you CAN stop it, your body NEEDS it to happen.

I will venture to say it’s the same thing with loving. If you stop loving, it will hurt you, buddy. So, keep loving. Not loving can kill you.

I mean, God is love and God is life. So, in a way, love is life. Like, love and life go hand in hand. God’s love is a powerful force that can do things. Just His love. It’s actually hard to grasp but I am serious. His love alone has power. Ah, but maybe that’s another post.

Anyway, it’s time to move on from the idea that we earn love. We really shouldn’t be put in the position to earn love in the first place so that’s the answer to that. If anything, I could have named this post “should we earn love?” It sounded better the other way though.

How to sign-up for the Dante’s Optimism Newsletter

I mentioned some time last week that this blog was going to get a newsletter. I am making it myself with the help of MailChimp. Yes, I wanted to plug them. No, I’m not told to nor am I receiving compensation from them for mentioning them.

So, right, you want to find out how to sign-up for the newsletter. Just follow these steps. I went through these steps and signed up with another email account I have so I am telling you what I saw.

  1. You want to press this link (you can press it now if you want; it opens in another window/tab)
  2. A form will appear asking for your email, first, and last name. You only need to enter email address. You can enter your name if you want; my subject lines for the newsletters address you by name.
  3. Then, after you submit your info to subscribe to the list, the next thing that shows up is something confirming that you’re human (I guess I wouldn’t mind robots reading the newsletter). I do hope you select the checkmark to confirm you’re not a robot.
  4. Then, it will ask you to confirm your email. So, go to your inbox (it could take a few minutes for the confirmation email to show up; also, check the spam)
  5. That’s it. You are now subscribed to the newsletter.

Whether a follower of this blog or the blog’s newsletter, you are a follower of this and are, indeed, an “Optimist”.

Also, I did a test on a web browser as well as on my smartphone. They flow the same way (as I figured; but I wanted to be sure). Well, they did for me.

I may or may not create a pop-up to ask new readers to become Optimists but, for one thing, I don’t like my experience interrupted, especially on a smaller screen like my phone. Another thing is; I really need to see how it looks. I think for WordPress, this would appear at the top of the blog. We will see. It’s cookie based so, if you don’t clear your cookies, you’ll only see the thing once. So, I’m glad it doesn’t constantly harass people. I don’t know yet, but I wanted to tell you instead of you getting surprised.

I said June would be the launch. That may or may not change. I’m making a lot more progress on my first issue so May could be the jump. If I go for May, I will let you know no later than a week before May so you can sign-up and/or brace yourselves. It’s also possible I send a special issue for early subscribers and wait for June for the usual. Aaaahhh, now ain’t that an idea?

Lastly, a page will appear on the blog containing these steps. So, if a friend of yours wants to sign up, just a simple link to the page will do. Also, it’ll be easier for people to see it vs being buried under older posts (although I could pin this but…nah).

Dante’s Optimism Newsletter coming soon; Other updates

Hey, so, as the title would suggest, I got some exciting news. I’m building a newsletter for this blog. This is part of a new push to get this blog out there.

Fun fact: I actually build a mobile app for this blog years ago, but I never got it out there for financial reasons. For the record, it’s a goal of mine to get the Dante’s Optimism App out there.

Anyway, this newsletter is of course inspired by this blog. My initial plan is to bring it to you monthly. This is because I don’t know exactly how much time I’ll need to execute this. I have considered weekly and bi-weekly. I do NOT want to spam your inbox, so nothing daily (plus I don’t know if I could maintain a daily newsletter). I also don’t want to go bi-monthly or longer. So, it’s likely it will be monthly.

I already know the core content:

  • Testimonies
  • Good/Positive news of the month
  • Positive quotes
  • Scripture
  • Recap of the month in general and my thoughts

Name of the newsletter? I was thinking about “Dante’s Optimism Newsletter”. Yeah, just…yeah. I don’t think I need to get fancy with the name. My goal is the first of each month. Once the newsletter is ready to go, I will tell you and give you a chance to signup.

Speaking of signup; it’s going to be free. As time goes on, if there seems to be a serious demand for this newsletter, then I will likely charge. Just another little stream of income for me. But, for now, I want to see how this does.

The newsletter will contain exclusive content that doesn’t appear on this blog as well.

The newsletter was almost a podcast, honestly. I was on the verge of beginning the process of recording when I stumbled upon the newsletter concept and I was like “duh”. If anything, that’s probably what this blog should’ve been.

Right, there are other updates for you.

When I am done with Daily Good Stuff, I will introduce a new series that will reflect the blog’s main mission (the tagline). The name of the feature will be similar to the blog’s name. If anything, it might be a rename of Daily Good Stuff and likely to be weekly. So, Tuesday Testimony and this new feature. I may launch this new feature with the newsletter.

Also, all followers of this blog are now known as “The Optimists” You are an optimist if you are following this blog. The newsletter also will mention this. So, throughout the site and in future posts, when I say…well, like Stan Lee calls people “True Believers” so yeah, that’s the idea. If you don’t know who Stan Lee is…um…that’s another post for another day.

So, when does the newsletter drop? Honestly, I might be able to send it by May, but I will give myself June. The newsletter is supposed to give people a taste of this blog, so you may or may not need to follow it. As you saw on my content list, there will be some things exclusive to the newsletter. Followers of the newsletter will be considered followers of this blog, for obvious reasons.

I want to thank you for following this blog. Some of you just joined and some of you have been here since day…um…well, not since day one. Actually, it took me a long time before I got my first follower to the blog. Now this is slightly awkward. Thanks for following! I really hope you enjoy the newsletter should you subscribe.

Daily Good Stuff 272: Funny Bunny