Listen to episode 59 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Overcoming Adversity with Optimism. Adapted from the essay Optimism by Helen Keller. Motivational Podcast Excerpt: A poet once said that I must be happy because I do not see the bare, cold present, but live in a beautiful dream. I do live in a beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present —not cold, but warm; not bare, but furnished with a thousand blessings. The very evil which the poet supposed would be a cruel disillusionment is necessary to the fullest knowledge of joy. Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness. It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. It is not enough to say that the twenty-first century is the best age in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from the evils of the world in ethereal dreams of good.