Optimism is overrated.

That is, of course, the sort of thing you might expect me to say. This blog is called “The Hopeful Curmudgeon,” after all. I am indeed a curmudgeon—one who sees the world through a jaundiced eye much of the time. I notice the little annoyances of life and see how they are often symptoms of bigger problems. The person who drives in the passing lane on the highway right next to another car, so there is no way to get around them, demonstrates the self-centeredness that plagues our contemporary world. Same thing with what passes for “customer service” in most places of business these days. Or consider the nefariousness of corporations who provide shoddy products or services, then put some non-offending kid on the phone to bear the brunt of the consumers’ anger while those who are really responsible never have to hear this deserved criticism. And don’t get me started on insurance and pharmaceutical companies, who rate their own circle in Dante’s Inferno.

There’s more, trust me. And after hearing me rant about these nightmares of the modern world for a while, you might conclude that I have a negative orientation toward life. But that’s where the word “hopeful” comes in. I call myself a hopeful curmudgeon, because despite all the evidence to the contrary I still hold out hope that things will turn out right in the end. I believe in resurrection and redemption. I believe that the commonwealth of God, present now only in fits and starts, will one day permeate the world the way kudzu blankets the ground.

But hope and optimism are not the same thing. Optimism doesn’t take into account the reality of evil in the world; it doesn’t take seriously humanity’s fallen nature. Optimism is a hear-no-evil-see-no-evil view of life, and I have little patience for it.

Worse, optimism can be a flat-out lie. Consider the inhabitants of Samaria and Ephraim who appear in Isaiah 9. They say, “The bricks have fallen, / but we will build with dressed stones; / the sycamores have been cut down, / but we will put cedars in their place” (v. 10). This is Pollyanna material, the stuff of politicians’ promises. “We may have had a setback or two, but we will come back stronger than ever before.” The Iraqis may have risen up in a counterinsurgency, but we will “smoke them out of their holes.” Our economy and infrastructure may be in a shambles, but we will “build back better.”There is never a problem that we can’t fix with good old American knowhow and a little elbow grease.

But listen to how the prophet describes this attitude: he calls it “pride and arrogance of heart” (v. 9). I have long held that true humility is not a matter of playing down one’s strengths but rather assessing one’s strengths and weaknesses accurately—not putting oneself down or glossing over one’s defects, but knowing who one is and acting accordingly. As such, the humble thing is to drop the false bravado or pandering exaggeration and see the world the way it really is. Not with pride and arrogance but with hard-headed realism.

I can’t help thinking about the energy crisis, and the way so many politicians and pundits say the solution is to “drill, baby, drill” or to increase fracking, and that if we would just subsidize the coal and oil industries a little more, all our problems would be solved—we’ll plant cedars in place of the sycamores. Or in the other camp, Joe Manchin’s recent turnabout on the climate bill means we have global warming licked—we’ll use dressed stones where there once were bricks.

A humble, realistic approach, however, looks clear-eyed at the situation and says what the Democrats have proposed is a good start, but it’s far from what we need to do to halt climate change, much less to reverse it. We are standing on the brink of a precipice saying, “Look at this view! I think I’ll build a summer house here,” refusing to acknowledge that the avalanche has already begun.

I still hold out hope for our world, because I believe in the commonwealth of God and in the power of God to bring about change. But God is not going to do it unilaterally; God works in partnership with us, so it would behoove us to take off the rose-colored spectacles, listen to the experts who have been telling us (for decades now) what we need to do, and get to work doing it. No optimistic everything-will-turn-out-right magical thinking, and no pessimistic surrender to despair, but a humble and hopeful intention to cooperate with our Creator and put in the work.