Honorable Mention - Lynn D. Taylor, Age 35

Welcome to our Optimistic Essay category. Here you will find the $1,000 winning contest essay, 5 finalist essays and 15 honorable mention essays and a growing list of hand-picked select essays that readers submitted during our "Why Are You Optimistic About the Future?" contest. This is a special category dedicated to those who took the time to share their touching stories and bright perspectives with HappyNews.com.

I have been unemployed for three months. I have a wife and four kids to support. I can't find a job, not even a response to a resume. We have some money saved to support us, but that is running out. In my relatively short lifetime I have been robbed, assaulted, shot at, and survived a major car accident. I have flown through the skies of Iraq, and been on the ground in Afghanistan. I know conflict and war. The news every day is filled with death, destruction, and scandal. In the last year I lost a family member very dear to me. I am still very optimistic about the future. "How can you be optimistic?" you may ask. A fair question. I remain optimistic for three primary reasons: history, experience and choice.

Gazing back across the millennial vistas of human history, there have always been dark times somewhere. While we still have our fair share of pain, overall the world is remarkably a better place. Though some people on the face of the earth are in the same conditions as their ancestors generations ago, few are worse off than their predecessors. Countless millions more live in conditions that our ancestors would deem miraculous. When considered as a whole, we are moving forward and upward, progressing and improving. Humanity has survived disasters such as the Black Plague, World War I, World War II, and countless others that never made it to the pages of history. The trying times we now experience will soon be another page in a history book as we all press onward, lifting those who come after us, as we were lifted by those who came before.

I am optimistic because I know that humanity is essentially good, decent and kind. I know this because I have seen these qualities displayed time and time again by men and women I don't even know. It doesn't matter what the social status, financial standing, or even country of origin is, and I have met all kinds around the world. There are wonderful people in all categories, ready and willing to offer a hand or a shoulder as needed. Beyond my own experience, consider what the state of the world would be if mankind was not, at its heart, good. Civilization would have imploded long ago. I would not be writing, and you would not be reading. Think about the people you know. Would you help them if they needed it? Would they probably help you? Your neighbor is more than likely a good person at heart, as are you.

More important than history or my personal experiences, however, there is one shining reason why I am optimistic about the future: because I choose to be. Every positive advancement in our history has been achieved because someone dared to be optimistic, and they dared to do something about that optimism. Such optimism is contagious. It spreads and grows and empowers people to reach beyond themselves to accomplish things they never dreamed possible. The power to act instead of react is one of the greatest gifts any of us possess. It empowers us to take control of ourselves, then exert what influence we can on our environment, shaping it to match our vision of tomorrow. Optimism is in many cases self-fulfilling and an example of finding what you look for.

Aristotle is quoted as saying that "we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." So it is with optimism. The choice, and the power, are yours.