Poem: Pragmatic but not Pollyanna

 It's been years
And hindsight is 20/20

Rose colored glasses
naivety with the glaze of youth

It's easy to become jaded
to become bitter and angry.

The challenge becomes
to see life with the experience of time.

Not lose the spark or the thrill of living
when it seems there is no point.

Easy to blame the state of the world
that other people are at fault.

You hear how things are going to hell
that everyone are out for themselves.

Yes, there are darker parts of life
but no man is an island.

Like it or not, other people live here too.
And even the most isolated hear about them.

There are other lives, other hardships
outside of your cranky little bubble.

The trick is to acknowledge the good with the bad
and look at things with a pragmatic eye

Not toxic optimism or doomsday pessimism
but how life is, and what it can be.

Because if such change is not possible
what is the point of our existence?