As is shown in the picture above, two men react in completely opposite ways when faced with the same event: A bottle fell off on the ground, and the wine inside spilt out. One is smiling, feeling glad that he still has the rest half of the wine while the other is sighing in great desperation saying that “everything screwed up!”

The cartoon tells us that being optimistic and being pessimistic are two different attitudes towards life. Faced with a challenge, a pessimistic person may feel gloomy and distressed. He considers himself powerless, and complains about it all day long, refusing even to have a try before giving it up in the end. An optimistic person, however, may adopt an entirely different approach. He may not regard the challenge as something that bad; instead, he takes it as an excellent opportunity to display his abilities and talent. As an old saying goes, “The way you perceive the world will determine your way to cope with it.”

In my point of view, though it is natural that we encounter challenges of one kind or another in our life, we should be optimistic whenever we are confronted with challenges. If we are pessimistic, we are destined to fail, ending up accomplishing nothing. But if we approach the challenges in an optimistic way, we may go from victory to victory.