Everywhere he went, Jeremiah warned people that their land would be subjugated, their way of life would be destroyed, and that they would become slaves of a government they did not choose.

Jeremiah is remembered today as “the weeping prophet.”

He was earnest, sincere, and entirely correct, but no one wants to be told that they have an inescapable appointment with a dentist and a gastroenterologist to receive a simultaneous root canal and colonoscopy in the outdoors during a rainstorm.

Jeremiah painted a dark sky without a single ray of sunlight shining through. This is why no one ever gave Jeremiah a microphone, an audience, and a big pile of money to be their guest speaker.

Polyanna was 11 years old in 1913, and she still rides around on her adorable little pony radiating sunshine and rainbows everywhere she goes. Pollyanna tells everyone who will listen that a magical genie will give you whatever you want if you just smile and laugh and think happy thoughts.

Pollyanna is even less popular than Jeremiah. I promise I’m not making this up.

Google tells me that Jeremiah remains a popular name for boys, always ranked in the top 100. Pollyanna is not nearly so popular among girls. It currently ranks somewhere between number 8,284 and number 13,776.

Jeremiah and Pollyanna became the topic of conversation while I was comparing notes with Ryan Deiss and Jet Eisenberg and Robert Grebe during lunch last week. We were trying to figure out why we were suddenly seeing a sharp uptick in public speaking requests.

We all agreed that a general feeling of unrest is shining out of every television screen and blowing through the ductwork of every home in America.

That’s when Deiss said,

“No one wants Jeremiah. No one wants Pollyanna. People are looking for someone who is aware of current difficulties, but who can also see a clear path forward.”

It was one of those moments when everyone at the table instantly knew that Truth had been spoken.

No one wants to hear the gloom and doom of Jeremiah right now. And no one wants to ride the pony or drink the sugarwater of Pollyanna.

People are just looking for a promising path forward.

My partner Todd Liles has been trying to tell me this for several months, but Ryan Deiss was able to condense it into a metaphor of paired opposites, the lightning bolt that is most likely to pierce my hard head and illuminate my mind

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome. Eighteen hundred years ago he wrote,

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in the same year that Jesus was born. Late in his life, Seneca said,

“True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”

But Jesus had already said the same thing thirty years earlier during his famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was teaching us to live in the present when he said,

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Do not fret about an imaginary future.

You will deal with the actual future when it arrives.

Everywhere he went, Jeremiah warned people that their land would be subjugated, their way of life would be destroyed, and that they would become slaves of a government they did not choose.

It was one of those moments when everyone at the table instantly knew that Truth had been spoken.

Roy H. Williams