Find Meaning in Life through an Impossible Dream

By Dr. Russ,

If the impossible dream is the seed of an optimistic moment, how do you cultivate it so that it grows and bears fruit?

Cultivating the seed with White Nile Optimism

Any farmer will tell you that cultivation requires stamina to stay the course during the growing season, to deal with long days of planting, storms, droughts and floods, pestilence, weeds, disease, long days of harvesting, and economic up and down turns. 

How does the farmer maintain optimism in the face of so many possible problems that occur day after day, and year after year after year?  We argue that it is only possible with a strong “Spiritual Mindset” that flows through the farmer like the White Nile feeds the Nile to keep it flowing at a steady state year round.

Here is another reason to look to your spiritual side for Optimism Stamina.

▪    Sometimes the pressures of your daily struggles can push your belief system beneath the surface.  Immediate pain and struggle can color the lens through which we all view all of God’s past, present, and future activities in our lives.  We can easily lose track of the truth.  And in that kind of emotional haze it doesn’t take long for us to start thinking that the goodness of God is a lie.  (Furtick)

White Nile Spiritual Tips for Optimism Stamina

Reality – The circumstances and problems that God gives us to overcome and solve.  He knows the closer you get to him to seek His help, the more your will learn and master to solve these problems.

More Reality – We only become REAL like the Rabbit and Skin Horse when someone really loves us, and when we accept God’s unconditional love for our imperfect selves, we have a store of love inside us that is the source of infinite optimism stamina.

▪    Romans 8:28 says: We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

 According to Steven Furtick:

▪    “Until you believe God is with and for you, fear and hesitation will characterize your life.” And, we say you will NOT have the stamina to remain in the 90%-plus optimism zone.

Belief  – According to Steven Furtick all you need to believe is that God is good and God is great to have optimism get to and remain in the 90%-plus optimism zone.  God is good means he loves us unconditionally.  God is great means he is the one who created the universe out of nothing with the snap of His fingers.  According to Furtick, if you do not believe that God has the kind of power to part the Red Sea, drop bread from heaven, and miraculously heal the ill, then you cannot have the kind of “audacious faith” necessary to have a constant and steady state of optimism stamina.

Truth –   “True faith is founded on what you believe about God and what He is capable of” because whatever He is capable of you are capable of if you allow Him to work here on earth through you. Are you beginning to see how White Nile Spiritual, Optimism Stamina works inside you as a constant and steady source of the positive view?

Trust  – If we believe in the truth of God then we can take risks for Him, including the risk that he will NOT answer our impossible dream prayer.  What do we risk by praying for the impossible?  Quite frankly, we risk undermining our faith if we come to think our prayer wasn’t answered, or we risk diminishing our belief in how good or great God is.  “Trust in God’ is essential to any sense of “Optimistic Stamina.”

Choice – We have a choice everyday to believe in the truth and trust of God.  Optimism stamina comes from never wavering in your belief in God’s truth and trust given to us freely through grace.  Of course we could choose to believe that God has abandoned us or has bad intentions.  In that case we would choose to stay away from God, which many do.  Make a choice to give God the opportunity to work through you and watch your optimism stamina grow astronomically.

Wisdom – The more we seek to understand God’s perfect nature and His purpose in the world, the more meaning our lives will have.  

Meaning – White Nile spiritual optimism comes from carrying out our vision of God’s purpose for us. If there is no limit to what God can do then there is also no limit to what we can dream and pray or accomplish in his service.  When we are acting for the glory of God, God responds because he wants to demonstrate His glory not only to us, but to those around us.  So He loves to accomplish the impossible on our behalf. Our life then takes on meaning with unlimited stamina held up by seeing the impact we can have on the world by accomplishing impossible, optimistic goals for His glory.  When we finally realize that God’s greatness is meant to work in our lives for our good, but not necessarily monetary good, we grasp on to an infinite source of optimism stamina.

{A key reference and idea source for this post was the book: Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, Multnomah Books, 2011).

Puppies, Weddings, and a Podcast Farewell (for now...)

This week in our last regular Podcast of Optimism, we discuss a tender moment of optimism brought to us by our rambunctious puppies, Sofie and Jasper, and learn how Jackie used her Optimism Stamina to overcome a brief Negative Moment of Bridal Drama!

Click here to listen in!

We also discuss our plans for the future, which include taking this summer off from recording regular podcasts. We hope to return with more details later this summer, and look forward to being about to spread our audio optimism to you once again! 

Dick Clark was One Rockin’ Optimist

Dick Clark, the perpetual teenager, died yesterday at the age of 82 as one of the richest men in the world.  I didn’t know he was that rich until I heard the news report.  I knew him as the host of American Bandstand and New Years Rockin’ Eve.  In this blog post, I am not going to reiterate all the accolades that are pouring in honoring his great career in music and show business.  Instead, I make my own personal tribute based on my own up close and personal experience with Dick Clark. It is notable that President Obama praised him as an OPTIMIST. 

I met Dick Clark up close and personal when I danced on live national television at American Bandstand.  The studio was located in West Philadelphia.  I grew up in that city of brotherly love.  On many days of the week when I was in 9^th and 10^th grades, I rode the subway home and went right past the WCAU studio around 3 pm the home of American Bandstand.  There was always a long line of teenagers outside on the sidewalk running the length of the building waiting to get in.  I longed to be one of those kids in line.

Lo and behold, I had a friend who had access to tickets.  Thus, my friend and I were able to go and be on the show on two different occasions, one in 1962 and another in the spring of 1963.  Like the many famous singers who got their start because Dick Clark played their music, I got my start as a dancer on the show.  I danced with some of the heart throbbing regulars.  I remember dancing with the blonde named Frannie.  Everyone was very friendly.  I put down my Chubby Checker twist moves, rolled my hips like Elvis.  I even shook hands with Dick Clark himself.  I credit Dick Clark for inspiring a lifelong love of dance that has led to my now ten year amateur career in tap dance.  An amateur career that has spanned several summer Broadway recitals and eight local ones.

By our definition of an optimist Dick Clark was one in every sense of the word.  He was a living example of someone who had incredible optimistic stamina.

1. He made setbacks momentary and famous with Ed McMahon on their “bloopers” show, and even showed some of his own mistakes made on live national TV.
2. He spent 6 decades of his adult life focused on what he could control which was producing shows rather than being an entertainer who was at the whim of a producer.
3. He accessed his creative zone when he created new shows like the American Music Awards show, New Years Rockin’ Eve, and a game show known as the $25,000 Pyramid.
4. He adapted to many roadblocks, but the most challenging one was when he had to let go of his extremely popular Saturday night show; a live, one half hour, featuring the live performances of the top rock and roll stars of the day.  He was investigated as part a U.S. Senate payola scandal.  Although he was not found guilty of any wrongdoing, to save his career he had to cut loose this program and some other holdings.  I really liked hat show, and was sad to see it go.  But, Clark knew he had to let go of that “projected future” in order to move ahead.
5. He always found the Positive View. He was quoted by USA Today as saying, “I try to keep a positive attitude and attack everyday with the thought things are going to get better.”
6. He was always looking for new opportunities and possibilities including the infamous “Gong Show.” He brought many new and unknown singers to national acclaim when he played their recordings on American Bandstand.  Connie Francis and Marie Osmond were among them.
7. He was a risk taker as evidenced by his willingness to feature African American Rock and Roll singers on American Bandstand as early as the late 1950’s.  He made Chubby Checker and the “twist” a national dance.
8. He was a lifelong learner who began his post secondary education with a business degree from Syracuse University.
9. With the stand he took on introducing America to African American Rock and Roll it is obvious that he never feared a difference of opinion in order to make a difference.
10. He was known as an incredibly hard worker from high school when he worked as gopher in his Dad’s radio studio to the end of his life in Hollywood.  He was always focused on his next right step to improve his business profit and holdings.  He never worried about what the other guy was thinking, nor cared about whether that guy thought it was the right next step or not.  He was known as living a consistent, low key, easy going, caring for people life for over 6 decades of his career. 

New Year, New Optimism

The 2012 New Year has already provided enough roadblocks for Jacie and Dr. Russ that they had to get out thier heavy duty optimism stamina gear in order to stay in the 90% optimism zone.  In their first podcast of 2012, they discuss the bumpy start to 2012 as well as some optimistic happenings around the globe and thier own goals for the new Year.

Click here to listen to our first Podcast of Optimism of the New Year.

Dr. Russ Buss Held Hostage and Squatted on Somewhere in the World

Where is the drrussbuss.com website?  We are not exactly sure.  What we do know is that as of January 2, 2012 any attempt to search for and access this website only takes you to a “Go Daddy” parked page which asks whether you own a website by that name.  Clicking through the prompts just brings you back to the parked page. 

We were able to access the Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog through its host site Squarespace.  The good news is that no content has been lost.  The bad news is that all of those who know us as drrussbus.com cannot access the inspirational material they have been seeking on a regular basis.

Where in the World is DrRussBuss

The best we can tell the “Buss” is being “squatted on” in Australia.  The actual hi tech term is “cybersquatting” or domain squatting which -

• “according to the United States federal law is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.”

We know for sure that a company in Australia has purchased our domain name.  What they plan to do with the name is unknown.  We can only hope that the “Buss” is not being abused while it is held hostage.  That domain name was special to us and we wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen to the “Buss.”  The “RussBuss” was a good vehicle from which to tour and explore optimism.

Unfortunately at this time we have no way of knowing when, if ever, we will be able to get the “Buss” back; at a minimum we estimate several months of concerted effort.  We still have questions about how the domain name was made available to sell.  And we will pursue reasonable channels to have it returned.  But we know you cannot wait that long to receive your next daily dose of optimism.  We know you need your “Optimism Now!”

Get Your “Optimism Now!”

This situation has certainly put our optimism stamina to the test.  How do we recover from this setback within a few moments and move forward towards our goal of teaching how to live optimistically in every moment of life?  If we allowed pessimism to rule the moment we would act like helpless victims and likely do one of the following:

1. Spend months trying to get the domain name back while losing over two years of effort building a stable audience platform.
2. Use a .org or .net domain name version of the site which we do happen to own.  While this solution is not necessarily pessimistic it is not optimistic either because it does not entertain the possibility of a grand new opportunity that might be out there as a solution to the problem.

We asked ourselves: “What is the grand new opportunity inherent in this negative situation?” A possible answer came to mind immediately.  We had recently purchased a new domain name that would support the new iPhone application we have developed and are about to release.  The domain name is: www.OptimismNow.com.  We realized that is was the perfect hosting name for the Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog and it could still support the App.  Because the new domain name has the word 'optimism' in it, it will likely make it much easier for individuals to be searching the net and stumble upon it.

Bookmark www.OptimismNow.com

For easy access to your daily dose of optimism, go ahead and bookmark the site with its new domain name.  Trying to access the site via the drrussbuss domain name will only take you to a dead end.  Meanwhile we will be trying to rescue the “RussBuss” from its Australian captors...