In their song “Unbelievers,” the band Vampire Weekend (a name I don’t particularly enjoy, even though I like their music) opines about the fiery fate that awaits unbelievers in the afterlife. It’s rather hard to be excited about the thought of one’s demise, although I suppose there are some people who might, especially if they think of an immediate and vastly better fate waiting them immediately afterward. The only time I can think where I might find the thought of my demise to be remotely pleasant would be if life was such a torment without any hope of relief otherwise. Such an occurrence has never happened in my life, as rough as it has been, although I can think of situations that would qualify, even if they are exceedingly unlikely to occur.

There are some parts of life that are tough to get excited about. It is tough to be excited about a long slog, dealing with matters that never seem to end and that go on and on seemingly forever. I do not mean only those things that last for months, but those things that last for years, even decades, without respite. It is difficult to feel excited about having to deal with the same sort of issues and their repercussions over and over again. No doubt many other people feel the same way about their own situations. Should we feel excited about such matters? I suppose that some of us struggle with such massive issues that they provide decades of development and maturity and struggle, with a lot of growth, even if it cannot always be seen.

The excitement in such matters comes after the fact. We become excited after we see what has developed in ourselves or in others, once the process is far enough along to recognize it. Once matters get to that point, it is easy to be excited, but it is not easy to get to that point in the first place. Much patience is required, and that is not an easy process to maintain through the frustration and lack of progress. In order to maintain the progress, one has to have a vision of a desired end that one wants to reach that allows one to put up with the frustration and time that it takes to develop ourselves and become better developed.

A great help to that process is having the resources to succeed. It is hard to be excited about promises, but it is easier to feel excited when there are results. And now we have come full circle. The excitement we have comes from either our experiences or our vision of a better future. If we have the resources to envision a better future, we can keep up more excitement in our lives here and now, drawing off of the stores of our optimism to give us the resilience to deal with the frustrations and petty problems of life. It is ironic how we need optimism, it would seem, in order to find a happier life. That is a matter that I will have to ponder a bit more often.