Optimism

In the world in which we live, looking to the future with hope is becoming more and more difficult. Each day we watch the news and see all of the world’s problems going unsolved; everyone arguing that their plan will fix whatever issue is presented before them, yet in their “deliberation” they never actually accomplish anything substantial. We live in a world where arguing about who is right has become more important than actually coming together and making real change. The realization that the world may never change paints a bleak picture; despite this, there remains at least one person that I know who always wears a smile and remains optimistic in even the most difficult of situations: Meghan Corso.

I’ve known Meghan for almost all of my life, granted that when you live in our community, everyone knows each other. Unfortunately, growing up we were never super close. Yes, we knew who we were and we were always kind to each other, but we never participated in the same activities or had the same friend groups. Like most people in school, we were only a familiar face to each other, nothing more and nothing less. However, once we entered high school, this weak friendship grew to the point where Meghan is now one of my closest friends.

The first time that I genuinely met Meghan in the middle of our sophomore year. Like a decent portion of my friends, we started to become real friends at track practice. I remember the day that I first got to know who Meghan we had a workout and like every workout, I was giving my half-hearted, yet completely genuine complaining about actually doing the work. With me perpetually saying statements like, “do we reeeaaaalllly have to do this” or “why don’t we just pretend that we did it and go to carvel instead.”

By the half-way mark our workout, everyone was dead – people were literally just collapsing on the turf immediately after finishing. Most of us were, naturally, extremely tired – getting up was proving to be a real challenge. Yet, despite this near pass-out moment of my life, what I remember most is how positive Meghan remained. Even though we each lap we nearly died each lap we completed, or at least felt like we were, Meghan had a smile on her face and was laughing at something that Coach Flower told her.

Looking at this, I walk over to talk to her, curious as to how she could be enjoying a workout that could quite possibly be classified under cruel and unusual punishment. The answer I got was not the one that I was expecting. She told me, “hey look on the bright side, we are over half-way done.”

For the rest of this workout, this simple saying resonated with me. And honestly, the more I thought about it, the easier the workout became. Instead of looking at everything as how much we have left to do, I began to look at everything that I have accomplished instead. Instead of looking at all the pain yet to come, I learned to look at all of the hardship that I have overcome.

Now we have gone to schools, in separate parts of the country: she’s enjoying temperature above freezing, and I’m stuck in an area where the temperature is in the single digits. Despite this difference in location, I know that during each break, our friend group will get together and it will be as if no time has passed at all.
P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGHAN!!!!!!
P.P.S. Sorry for trolling your insta to get the pics