It’s no secret that I, Natasha, like the show Girl Meets World. For various reasons. But today I wanted to write about something I thought of after watching the episode “Girl Meets Pluto.”

One of the main characters, Riley, is often described as a goofball who only sees the good in everything. And she wants to believe Pluto is still a planet. Whatever your thoughts might be on that, I can relate to her; I never wanted Pluto to stop being a planet. When I originally learned the Solar System,( via the Magic School bus,) I taught it to my younger sister. It was one of my first teaching experiences; I loved it. And Pluto was still a planet.

Do you see why I still want to think of it as such? Perhaps the fact of the matter is, as I’ve heard pointed out, that it’s ridiculous for us human beings to think we can decide what anything as huge as a planet is. But really, its not about how much we know, or how we can measure stuff, we names thing so we can learn about them and so they mean something to us.

If Pluto is a planet it has more dignity than what it’s called now, an “Ice dwarf.” Ugh. It’s one thing to decide something is grander than you knew at first, like the sun being more central than the earth; but it’s another to decide something is lesser than you thought. The earth is actually more central than we used to think. And I can understand why Riley still wants to believe Pluto is a planet.

I have a lot of Riley in me. I want to see things in a good light. Even if/when I hear hard facts, I wonder if there’s a brighter side that no one knows about. Is there a hidden good? Perhaps that sounds like nonsense to other people. Sometimes I think it is and that I just look for what’s not there. But here’s the thing: I like being this way. From all I’ve observed, in my short life, being pessimistic only makes you miserable, and it means you are always living in fear of bad things happening. I know too many people who tend to think the worst. They aren’t happy. Though “There’s more to life than that–Don’t ask me what.” (Fiddler on the Roof.)

I have to say I’ve been disappointed a lot, and I have my moments of wanting to give up on hoping for the best. But in the end, I can’t, because the day I lose hope, I lose everything. If you have no hope, you won’t see the good that is there, and you won’t expect the good that might happen. (Ever wonder why people who are pessimists are also the most critical?)

I have to have hope even to think anyone might read this post, and more hope to think it might help them out.

One final thought: Hope is not always a feeling. It is a choice. It is choosing not to say that the worst will happen; hope is waking up in the morning and being glad to start the day; hope is doing your work because you know it’ll benefit you in the long run; hope is risking standing up for something because you think it can get better; hope is seeing the political mess around us and believing good things can still happen; hope is turning off the electronics and doing something in the real world; hope is encouraging someone else because it could brighten their day. What fuels all this is love. Hope is the action of love. One of them anyway. Or perhaps it’d be better to say hope is the action of faith. Whatever works for you.

Okay, that’s all I’m going to say for this post, hope you enjoyed it–Natasha.