The battle against sleepless nights

I think most of us know the feeling of going to bed to (try to) sleep, with a head heavy from a mix of sadness, hopelessness and worries about something we've been working with during the day that we have not been able to bring to the point to which we would like to have it brought - just to wake up in the morning (after having finally fallen asleep far into the night) with a much more positive view of life. At least I, personally, have sometimes suffered quite a bit from it.

In fact, at one point, the feeling became so familiar that it allowed me to shake it off by calming myself with a simple "Do not worry about it - you know that you will wake up with a much lighter perspective in the morning". Although I know it's a strange meta argument, it has actually proven to be effective - and correct - in quite a large number of situations.

However, my dear friend from my Twitter tribe, Wendy Woolfork, mad eme understand that I ought to modify this large number of situations a bit. So I must underline that at least for me, it has proven to be effective. I am not able to say, that it is a silver bullet for anyone to use - and I recognize that there are worries with such an impact that they will not magically be gone at the break of dawn.

(Translated from Til kamp mod søvnløse nætter)

The only right choice

One of my favourite quotes is attributed to Churchill, eventhough no one seems to be able to find the source for it:

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

It however sound very good together with another quote, which can be traced back to Churchill:

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.

With the definition of the pessimist and optimist from the first quote, it is obviously true. We must see the possibilities in the difficulties, not the opposite. There will undoubtedly be trouble - Churchill had his fair amount of trouble in his time; but only by taking the difficulties as challenges and doing our best to overcome them we have the chance to get something better. Pessimism and negativity merely lead to apathy, resignation and fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecies one creates for oneself. And that will bring no joy - at least not, if one ignores the extremely poor and stupid one of the kind it is to be able to say "I told you so!"
(Translated from Det eneste rigtige valg, originally published February 24th, 2017)

On the topic of being able to fly

It was supposedly Ray Bradbury, who once said that

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

It reminds me of an incident I was involved in recently, when a person present felt that the initiative we had started out to set the rules for could be compared to cutting the branch on which we were sitting.
As it happened, I did not quite share the point of view, which led me to the other extreme, stating that "Well, let's see. I do not think that we are cutting our own branch. But if we are - who knows, maybe we'll find that we can fly?"
The outcome is still undecided, as the points of view unchanged. Until the moment when at high speed I simply hit the ground, I am in the - for me quite uncharacteristical - situation that I am foolhardily convinced that I'm right.
(Translated from Noget om at kunne flyve, originally posted June 26, 2016)