Toughminded optimism

I like to read the Fixes column in the New York times.  A week ago or so David Bornstein wrote a couple of columns about an organization called KaBOOM! that teaches people how to organize and raise money to build playgrounds.  In the second part of the series, The Rewards of Renewal, he mentions the book Self-Renewal: the individual and the innovative society by John W. Gardner (find a copy at your local library here).  I checked out the book and was inspired by what Gardner had to say about the qualities we need for self-renewal.  He writes:
"First, I would stress the importance of a toughminded optimism.  Both the toughmindedness and the optimism are immensely important.  High hopes that are dashed by the first failure are precisely what we don't need.  We need to believe in ourselves but not to believe that life is easy" (pp.xii-xiii).