Reasonable Optimism

“Optimism is most helpful when it is really convincing. So aim for a reasonable goal. I tell a boy to try to be sixth if I know he can do no better. If your friend is second assistant bottle-washer today, don’t tell him he can be company president tomorrow. If he doesn’t believe you, it will do no good. Get him working furiously to become top bottle-washer. If your son got a D on the last history test, tell him you’re betting he’ll make a C on the next.” – Dean Cromwell

This post (from my previous blog entitled Smart Reading) elicited a comment from Manila Bay:

Hi Ner,
Thanks for dropping the message.
Btw, I like this best... [quote]

So doable and really so useful (heh, am gonna say those things to my teen-age boy who does just enough to get him by when he can do much more to get a B…)
Thanks again.

Since I'm shutting down that blog, I'll be re-posting some of its posts here under the same filename.