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Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley, who had just led the team to their first
NBA championship in franchise history, was asked Friday (June 23, 2006)
whether he would keep his 15-man team intact.
"I think that's Pollyanna thinking to be honest with you," Riley said
in reply.
Pollyanna thinking?
Well, Riley went on to explain: "We did what we had to do with this
group of guys and over the next couple of days, week, two weeks, we'll
discuss the team. We have to make some decisions. We have some players who
have to make some decisions. And then we'll go from there. There isn't
anybody that we wouldn't want to bring back from the core, as it stands.
But we'll have to see."
In other words, even though he wants the whole team back to defend its
title, it won't happen. Few NBA teams, if any, ever stay put and make no
changes (signing new, younger, better players while letting go those who
either are getting older and going downhill with their skills and
athleticism or who simply don't fit) to improve their roster during the
off season, which is between now and the start of the next playing season
in November.
By "That's Pollyanna thinking", Riley was saying that's positive
thinking, so much so that it's a bit too idealistic to be realistic. It's
too optimistic to be true.
The term "Pollyanna thinking" came from the 1913 novel (Pollyanna) by
Eleanor H. Porter. A classic of children's literature, the book is about a
girl, Pollyanna Whittier, who, following the deaths of her mother (Jennie)
and father goes to live with her mother's younger sister (Aunt Polly).
Jennie is idealistic and romantic, quite unlike Polly cares only to
conduct her everyday life (or "duty business" in her words) with precision
and profit (perhaps without seeing or getting any fun out of it).
Jennie, says the book, "as a girl of twenty, had insisted upon marrying
the young minister, in spite of her family's remonstrances. There had been
a man of wealth who had wanted her - and the family had much preferred him
to the minister; but Jennie had not. The man of wealth had more years, as
well as more money, to his credit, while the minister had only a young
head full of youth's ideals and enthusiasm, and a heart full of love.
Jennie had preferred these - quite naturally, perhaps; so she had married
the minister, and had gone south with him as a home missionary's wife."
It is from Jennie and her poor but fun-loving father (who passed away
soon after Jennie's death) that Pollyanna inherited a unique trait - she
has a knack for being able to see the bright side of something, whatever
it is and however bleak the situation. Young as she is, she's able to see,
for example, that "the only thing to be glad about that duty business" is
"when the duty's done" and dealt with so that she is left some time "just
to - to live."
This knack to see good in (obviously) the bad comes from a game played
between her later father and herself - the "just being glad" game.
The game was to "just find something about everything to be glad about
- no matter what it was."
It began when she as a baby wanted to have a doll sent as a toy from
charity groups. Yet, they had nothing like a doll to send her but a pair
of little crutches instead.
It is then Pollyanna's father, seeing the girl's visible
disappointment, told her for the first time that there's something to glad
about in everything, if one can find it. Sometimes it's hard to find it,
of course, but that's really where the fun is.
Now, what's to be glad about in a pair of crutches when all a little
girl wants is a doll? Pollyanna could not see it, "at first," she tells
Nancy, Aunt Polly's maid servant. "Father had to tell it to me."
"Well, then, suppose YOU tell ME," asked Nancy.
"Why, just be glad because you don't NEED THEM!" exulted Pollyanna,
triumphantly. "You see it's just as easy - when you know how!"
"Well, of all the queer doings!" breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna
with almost fearful eyes.
"Oh, but it isn't queer - it's lovely," maintained Pollyanna
enthusiastically. "And we've played it ever since. And the harder it is,
the more fun it is to get them out."
Well, now that I've given the game away, I hope I haven't destroyed
your interest I am piquing in reading the book. All too often it happens
with a person from what is called X-generation that they read
introductions to a book instead of the book itself. There perhaps are too
many books than you have time for, but I do like to see every Chinese boy
and girl from 16, 22, 40 (whenever you feel you're old enough to
philosophize and enjoy it) upward to 61 (Pat Riley's age) to read that
little book.
Personally, I don't mind people who're greater in years than 61 reading
the book either. But a lot of Chinese who're that age or older tend to
think they already know everything and so, with them, I prefer to leave it
at that.
Similarly, there are those younger minds who think they already know
everything too, of course. With them, I'm prepared to leave it at that as
well (saves time). As for the rest of you, I say, read that story of
Pollyanna Whittier.
I believe it'll make y'all wittier.
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