Realptimistic

Optimism. Would you consider it a good thing?
You prob do. And for the most part I would agree with you.
But the real question is, can optimism be a bad thing?
In some instances, I believe this to be true.

What good is optimism if it makes you miss or avoid reality and in turn creates more problems and issues. Looking at and dealing with reality allows us to more accurately asses a situation and act accordingly. If you are "optimistic" by pretending that the situation is better than it really is, then chances are you will only make more mistakes and make the situation worse.

That's exactly why we are in our current economic situation, everyone was overly-optimistic. No one prepared for or imagined that tough times could be ahead, everyone assumed that the good times would continue to roll when all the signs were saying that the growth and economic situation were unrealistic and bound to change in the near future. But "optimism" kept us from seeing the truth, it shaded our eyes and now we've fallen into a deep hole.

It's also the reason I believe the recession is far from over, all these stimulus packages have done nothing but postpone the innevitable. We made some mistakes in the past, we went to far in debt and the recession is the consequence. By going through all these measures to soften the blow we have only postponed our consequences, not avoided them all together. Bad decisions bring bad consequences, that's just how life is.

Don't think that I'm a pessimist from these comments, cause I most certainly am not. I hope to make the best of the future, but I don't think we can do that if we are misleading ourselves today by being overly-optimistic. By being realistic today, i can truly be optimistic about the future, it won't necessarily cause me to be over-optimistic.

We need to optimistic, but we also need to be realistic in order to change and improve.
Just don't be stupid and live in a world that doesn't exist. Instead create a better world by living in the real world.

If I could sum it up in two words, I would choose optimistic and realistic. Put them together and you get...realptimistic.

Ya.