Jennifer Dziura writes life coaching advice weekly here on TheGloss, and career coaching advice Fridays on TheGrindstone.
The glass-half-empty-or-full dichotomy never really expressed the issue for me.
The point is supposed to be, of course, that a glass half-full or half-empty can be looked at two different ways, so why not look on the bright side of life?
HOWEVER:
I. Water is a thing that can be measured quantitatively.
II. Half-full and half-empty are always the same thing.
III. It’s easy to get more water.
IV. The rate of increase or decrease of the water is more important than the absolute amount.
Addendum to point (III): If you’re all like, “I am very grateful for this half-cup of water,” you are less likely to get off your ass and turn on a fucking faucet.
In Bullish: Gratitude is Nice, But Don’t Let It Keep You From Action, I wrote about the dangers of positive thinking, at least regarding things you can actually change. In every Bullish ever, I’ve written about the importance of audacious future planning.
Addendum to point (IV): You really need to make sure that you don’t sit on your ass practicing gratitude while your water continues to disappear.
Why don’t we plan for terrible but likely events?
The other day, I ate some Cuban food at brunch. Then, my throat felt weird. My glands swelled up. I declared to my fiancé that I had “gland cancer.”
He said, “You don’t get sick much, do you?”
I don’t. (Well, just the one major time that lasted a year and a half, which I wrote about in Bullish: Preparing for Getting Hit By a Truck, which is not actually about getting hit by a truck.)
I was fine. I just won’t eat there again, even though the mofongo was delicious.
When we got engaged, I made my fiancé promise that he would take care of me when I’m getting chemotherapy. That’s really the main wedding vow, as far as I’m concerned.
My fiancé gets uncomfortable when I point out that all of our parents will die and at least one of us will almost certainly get a horrible illness and then we will die also. But this sort of thing is exactly why we have marriage (and gay people should also have the option) — when it’s time to go to a funeral, you don’t want to be wondering if it would be “weird” to cry all over your boyfriend for more than a certain number of days.
I believe in planning for the worst, and then going off to enjoy as fabulous a life as possible for as long as it lasts.
