Children.

My brother once propositioned me with a motto to live by that told me to "expect the worst, hope for the best." A little cliche, but that doesn't mean it wasn't something I could use at that point in my life. Since then, I've kind of been back and forth on whether its actually something that should be practiced, or if I should be both expecting and hoping for the best and taking the worst head on when it happens.

The real question is, can you change that in yourself?

Sure, you can be a pessimist one day and upon realization and in an attempt to be a brighter, happier person, gradually practice optimism until you become it, but even an optimist can expect the worst, can't they? Expecting the worst doesn't automatically place you in the pessimist column, does it?

To me, it basically means that you've lived bad enough experiences that you know that life deals unexpected blows and so you have to be on your game and prepared for things to all fall down some day.

Or am I way off?

Could it be that as long as the worst is expected, things will never be the best because even the best moments will always be ruined by that voice in the back of your head that's making sure you're not caught off guard by a bump in the road?

If this is the case, how do you let go?

When I see children passing through my place of work and stopping off at the playground with their parents, initially I think about how adorable they are, which leads to wishing I could have as much fun doing the simplest things like they do, to thinking about how innocent they are, to thinking about how vulnerable they are, to thinking about all the bad things that could happen to them because they're virtually defenseless. I can't help but look at children and think of all the bad things that do happen to them.

This doesn't happen with all children though.

I don't think this about my own nephew, or all of my neices-in-law, and I think that's because with them, I can expect and hope the best for them because I know their families are fully capable of protecting them. I'm sure that all of the families that come through my work are fully capable too, but since I don't know them, I can't help but expect the worst. It doesn't help either that 40% of the families that do bring their children there leave them alone in the playground area while they shop around the store, some as young as 8 or 9 looking after even younger ones.

I just really hate (one of the few times I'll use this word) that I have to live in a world where I have to worry about things like this. I don't mind the battle of good and evil. I understand it's existence. There are some things though that not even the devil (in theory) himself would take credit for because they're just so wrong and it's these things that keep me expecting the worst.

I would love more than anything to expect the best, I really would, but as long as children are being treated the way they are, how is that possible? How can you expect the best when our future lay in the hands of the abused?

Of course, I realize that not all children are abused, but if you want some statistics so I don't seem such a Debbie Downer: in the year 2002, "2.6 million reports concerning the welfare of approximately 4.5 million children were made in the United States. In approximately two-thirds (67 percent) of these cases, the information provided in the report was sufficient to prompt an assessment or investigation. As a result of these investigations, approximately 896,000 children were found to have been victims of abuse or neglect—an average of more than 2,450 children per day."

Here's the kicker: "An average of nearly four children die every day as a result of child abuse or neglect."

The only way that this world is going to become a safer place is when we start to raise our children right, and when that starts to happen, you can give my expectations a call and let them know better times are coming.