Optimism

From "It's a wonderful life" (Times Online):

The real shift can only come from below — from a million small decisions to scrub a wall of graffiti, to rear a child, marry a loved one, teach an immigrant, turn off a mobile phone, look out for an elderly neighbour, decline that last beer. These things change not when politicians or bishops demand that they do. They change when people have finally had enough of the boorishness that selfishness sustains.

Unrelated
We are not characters in our own lives. This isn't a novel. It would probably be a good thing if we taught young people that donning and shedding personas and affectations (and, metaphorically, casting said on the dressing room floor for a personal shopper to tidy) is a behavior best relegated to one's teens. To reach adulthood and still be about the business of auditioning roles for one's self -- adopting this one, advertising it as if all the world were interested, and abandoning it a few weeks or months later (wash, rinse, repeat) -- is a personal failure that can be, with a little self-discipline and -scrutiny, avoided.

No, this isn't a novel. It can, at its finest, be a work of creative non-fiction, though -- if we shed our childish behaviors and clasp to our hearts only our child-like wonder, interest, and tenacity.