Tax cuts, limited government, personal retirement accounts, freedom from communism...each of these policy positions taken by Ronald Reagan speaks to his philosophy but also to his optimism. And that brings me to favorite stories.
One of them I will share with you, I heard President Reagan tell and re-tell many times...and so perhaps have you. But we will always enjoy hearing it as much as he enjoyed the telling of it, I am certain.
"The parents of two brothers ndash; one an incurable pessimist and the other an incurable optimist..; took their sons to see a doctor in the hopes of curing the boys of their respective conditions. The physician started with the young pessimist. He took the boy into a room brimming with a mountain of new toys. "These are all yours," the doctor said. Immediately, the young pessimist burst into tears. "What's wrong?" His parents asked. "If I play with the toys, "the boy sobbed, "surely they will all break and be ruined."
Next, the doctor tried his hand with the young optimist. Instead of toys, the doctor took his patient into a room filled with a mountain of horse dung. "This is for you." The doctor told him. With that, the boy smiled, so wide he could have eaten a banana sideways. Excited, he raced to the top of the mountain of manure, where, with his bare hands, he began digging into the pungent heap. Baffled, the doctor and the parents looked at one another quizzically, "Son," the father asked." What in heaven's name do you think you're doing?"
"Well, the boy replied, with all this horse dung, I figure there's got to be a pony in there somewhere!" [end]
Maybe this story helps to explain Ronald Reagan. He believed that Americans could achieve whatever they put their minds too and he intended to have optimism rule during his presidency.......... Source
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