The Optimist: One Man's Search for the Brighter Side of Life - Softcover

LAURENCE SHORTER

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184767061X ISBN 13: 9781847670618

Publisher: CANONGATE BOOKS LTD, 2009

Synopsis

When it comes to bad news, we’ve never had it so good.

Laurence Shorter is feeling anxious. Every time he opens a newspaper or turns on the radio he finds another reason to be tearful. It’s time to make a change. It’s time to be optimistic!

His plan is simple:
1. Learn how to jump out of bed in the morning.
2. Secure personal happiness.
3. Save the world.

The Optimist charts Shorter’s ambitious, year-long, international quest to seek out the world’s most positive thinkers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jung Chang, Matthieu Ricard, California’s renowned Surfing Rabbi, and Bill Clinton. But optimism doesn’t come easy, and Shorter’s resolve is tested at every corner: by a flagging career, a troubled love affair, and his ever-pessimistic dad.

The Optimist is a hilarious and ultimately life-affirming stand against the grind of everyday strife, packed with reasons to be cheerful.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

About the Author

Laurence Shorter is a stand-up comedian and writer. He has been writing and performing since 2001, when he was selected for the Old Vic Theatre’s noted "New Voices" programme. He and his work have appeared on the BBC, in The Observer and The Independent, and at the Edinburgh Festival and assorted London theatres.
From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bill Clinton:
“I could draw you an ugly picture about climate change,” he said, “a world without oil, AIDS. I could give you the worst-case scenario. But just recently, I spent a day in Africa, in the Oldivai range, in the Ngorongoro Crater where the first human beings in the world are said to have been born. I was standing there, listening to the birds, looking at the sky, and talking to the Masai — reminding myself that I am 99.9 per cent the same as them — that I'm even 99.9 per cent the same as Nelson Mandela, which I find hard to believe. And I realised that all of human history is the story of us coming into contact in wider and wider circles and deciding over time that we are the same; that the other is one of us.”
Mick Jagger:
Soon afterwards I met Mick Jagger. He was kicking a deflated football around Kensington Park.

Whoa, I thought to myself, this visualisation thing is getting out of hand!

“Mick,” I said.

“Yeah?” He looked up.

“Are you optimistic?”

“Course I am!” he grinned.

I took a step closer. “Why are you optimistic?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Tell me more.”

He glanced anxiously at his friends. “It would take too long.”

“There’s no hurry,” I reassured him. “I’ve got all the time in the world.” Mick broke into a trot. “Come back!” I cried. Mick was afraid, afraid of the therapeutic journey. I watched his thin figure pirouette around the ball.

All in good time, I said to myself. All in good time.
Desmond Tutu:
“Listen, pessimists are usually people who are not actually doing too badly. But they’re cynical because they’re holding onto the wrong kind of things. They’re holding onto externals...”

Oh no, I thought, not again.

“You’re cynical because you think that external things can make you happy... you know, a smart car, a nice house, a beautiful wife, but it was discovered long ago... you don’t have to be a Christian to realise that. Ha! All of these material things, wealth, success, sex...they don’t actually have the capacity to satisfy.”
Ashley Judd:
“So... you’re writing a book about optimism?”

“I want to change the way people think... That’s why I wanted to talk to you, so we could... maybe...” There was silence on the other end of the line. “So, are you optimistic?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashley, “otherwise I couldn’t do what I do.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“What we do in these places,” she said, “is reach out to poor people with upbeat, effective behavior-change messages focused on medically accurate sex education.”

“Nice...” I paused. “So, you’re optimistic?”

“The very fact we’re doing this work is cause for hope — twenty years ago these problems were brushed under the carpet. On the other hand,” she sighed, “prostitution is the third largest industry in the world. And it is getting more and more brutal as organised crime gets involved, hand-in-hand with extreme physical violence.”
From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: CANONGATE BOOKS LTD
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 184767061X
• ISBN 13: 9781847670618
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320