Is Your Glass Half-Full? Drink up – truth is it doesn’t matter too much.

Today’s five-minute wisdom comes mostly courtesy of Hugh Mackay – a man so well-adjusted that I can do little more than concur.  In his book ‘The Good Life – What makes a life worth living’ he reminds us to:

• Stop striving to be so damn happy all the time. Doing so can actually have the reverse effect – ‘If you encourage people to pursue happiness single-mindedly as their primary goal, either they are going to risk surrendering to the delusion’ OR ‘they are going to be frequently disappointed and frustrated.’ Happiness is just one of the many emotions that make up who we are.
• ‘There actually is no future.’ It does not exist – and focusing too much on the future and worrying about what could happen, might happen, might not happen – is a big fat waste of time. ‘This is not to discourage us from dreaming of ways to make the world a better place, it is not to diminish the importance of responsible planning; it is not to overlook the need for warnings about the direction we may be heading. It is only to remind us if we live with an eye too keenly fixed on the future…we will miss the richness of the present.’
• Things don’t matter but people do. ‘Your greatest and most enduring influence for good or ill, will be upon the people closest to you, regardless of the grandeur of your dreams or the height of the monuments you might hope will be erected in your honour…Nothing will ever be perfect. We will have helped shape the future, though, mainly by the way we have lived moment by moment; by the example of kindness and compassion we have or have not set, by our commitment or lack of it to living a life for others, by the extent to which we have sought to promote goodness in ourselves and those around us.’
• Positive thinking is a bit overrated – Yes, it is better than being Mr. Negative -Pants all the time but spending too much time thinking positively can mess with our ability to think realistically.

‘The glass is half full, says the optimist’

‘The glass is half empty, says the pessimist’

‘The glass is twice as big as it needs to be, says the engineer’

‘We don’t need to put a positive spin on everything; if the water reaches halfway up the glass, that’s the reality we’re presented with; that’s the reality we need to deal with.’

This Get Happier (but non-deluded) tip was brought to you by someone who believes that attitude is not so much about whether the glass is half full or half empty, it’s more keenly about who is paying for the next round.