Half-empty

I wish I had the optimism of my dog. You've seen her pictures. She's a sweet, feisty red-headed cocker spaniel who thinks she's the fiercest thing around (she's not!). And she's very, very optimistic.

Every morning, she wakes up just thrilled to be alive. She jumps on me, optimistically believing she can nudge me out of bed, even though I'm the biggest morning grump around. Every morning, she believes this will be the morning I will go straight into playing fetch with the squeaky ball, or a long walk, or some other day-long activity centered entirely around her.

Every evening when I eat dinner, she sits in rapt attention, optimistically believing this will be the evening that I give her food from my plate. I never do, but she sits as still as she can and acts like the best little dog she can because she always has hope.

Now maybe this isn't unfailing optimism so much as a lack of memory. I believe she knows certain routines, though, so I believe it is optimism. Either way, it's an attitude I wish I could capture for myself to take into court on each and every case.

I wish I could forget about all the times the court or a prosecutor has disappointed me by not doing what I thought was really the right thing. I wish I could forget about all those little rulings that went against me, and all those times a court poo-poo'ed my impassioned pleas for a fairer trial, and all those times a court just overlooked error because the result was good enough. It would be so nice to go into court each time with a totally fresh outlook, unburdened by the knowledge of all the ways the court could come up with to screw my client. How wonderful it would be to go into court every day optimistically believing this would be the day that I would prevail.

But I'm just not that optimistic. And I have a very long memory.