Select Entry- Wanda Christy, Age 40

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.

Too often we look to the past with fond remembrances and jaded memories of the "good old days". I for one am often guilty of dwelling on past experiences instead of looking forward to the new ones. However, we can never go forward if we are always looking back. The future is like an unopened gift on Christmas morning. It holds anticipation and excitement over something that is a mystery to us, but we look forward too. (not Counting those socks you didn't want).

One of my favorite toys has always been the etch a sketch. Remember those? I liked that when I Made a mistake I shook it up and it was gone. I had a fresh slate to begin again. The future is like that.

I have done many things in my life I am proud of, but can dare say many more things that I am not. While I can never change the things that bring me shame, I can strive to every new day try my best that my good will outweigh my bad. The future allows me that.

Every year we get older, but instead of a bad thing, that is a wonderful thing. That means that we have been blessed with another chance to learn something new, experience life and love more. The future means new friends that I don't know exist yet. The future means another sunset that is going to take my breath away.

The future means hope in a hopeless world.

So often the news (present site excluded) focuses on the bad because it sells. But I found hope in our future as human beings in the quiet stories that didn't receive the limelight.

-The man that took his own boat and went Roof to roof to rescue Katrina victims.

-The men and woman that gave of their time and finances to help those stranded furry family members.

-The ones that opened their homes in other states to take in a stranger in name but a brother in humanity.

You, see, that is what the future is about. I am certain many people will write about the wonders of technology we have yet to find, I cannot help but be excited by the simplicity and yet complexity of life itself and the people that live it. For as long as we can remember what makes us mankind, there is a hope and a future for all of us.