Mr Glass-Half-Empty 2007; and the winner is…

I know a guy.
Actually, I know a bunch of guys.
But yesterday I bumped into this particular guy.
This guy is the poster-boy for pessimism.

(To all you frustrated, wanna-be English teachers who keep writing to tell me that I can’t start sentences with words like but or and or so or anyway… and that I can’t use dots like this….. all the time and that I over-use and inappropriately use parentheses ((( ))) … like I’m doing right now and that I am massacring the English language… and that I’m constantly desecrating all the rules of grammar, I’ll do my very best to keep ya’ll happy from now on).

Or perhaps not.
So anyway…

So this guy’s not a besty (best friend) or anything but I’d guesstimate that I’ve spoken to him (in various situations) about fifty times over the last twenty years.

He’s more a ‘friend of a friend’, so I kinda know him by default.
He’s a nice (enough) guy… but geeeeeeeeeze he’s hard work.
And I really hope he doesn’t know what a blog is.
This blog anyway.

In all the conversations I’ve had with him, I’ve never (ever) seen him smile or laugh.
That’s gotta suck.
Imagine being that miserable.
Bummer.
He’s never got any good news to share.

Life is never great.
Things are never going well.
He needs a trolley to carry his bottom lip around.
And his back must be killing him from carrying the world on his shoulders.

And unfortunately for me.. every time we meet he seems compelled to tell me about his crappy life in excruciating detail.
Of all the people to have a connection with, he’s picked me.

If he actually wanted to change and do something about his ‘problems’… I’d be okay with it, but he seems to delight in his misery.
His woe-is-me.. ness.
He has an ability to be able to pluck misery out of joy like your mother would pluck that tiny splinter from your hand when you were five.

You know how you always wanted a super-power when you were a kid?
(It’s probably another boy thing).
Anyway, I always wanted the invisibility thing.
Now I know why.

So I decided to dig a little ’cause I thought… it couldn’t always be that bad.

I spoke to one of his best friends and asked a few questions.

“He’s always like that… he’s the original “Mr Glass-Half-Empty”.. I was told.

And while his life is not without challenges (that’s called being alive), he is married to a great girl, has couple of kids, has a good job and apart from his attitude, he is healthy.
There is plenty of good but he always finds the bad.
He is a misery magnet.

And when there’s nothing to worry about, he’ll find something.

As he was unloading on me about his crappy life, I tried to find some good.
He keep steering us back to the bad.

“Yeh but… ” he kept saying.

He didn’t want my help; he just wanted my attention.
And sympathy.
I left.

“See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.”

Left him and the grey cloud hanging over his head to enjoy his terrible life.
Today’s lesson is relatively short and simple.

But very important…

1. Every day we have the choice of having a great day… irrespective of what happens (or doesn’t happen) during that day.
A good or bad day is a choice, an attitude.
It’s a philosophy and mindset that we take into every situation, circumstance and conversation.
It’s no coincidence that some people always seem to have good days.
It ain’t luck.

And then there are people who consistently make life harder than it needs to be.
While others (like a friend of mine who has been told she has three months to live six times) always find a way to make each day special.
She squeezes every precious drop out of her life while others languish in their own self-induced misery.

2. There’s stuff we can control and stuff we can’t.
Don’t waste your time and energy on the stuff you can’t change or control. (many do).

Waaaay too many people live in (agonise in) the past… what coulda, shoulda, woulda happened.. if only… GET OVER IT.
It’s done.
Move on.
Stop wasting your time, your gifts and your potential in the NOW.
Stop being held captive to your past.

3. Bitterness, anger, resentment (and all the other negative emotions).. will kill ya… one way or the other.
Choose different… even when that negative emotion may be seemingly warranted or reasonable.
So many people live in those negative, destructive, paralysing emotions.

And then one day they wake up only to find they’re old, grumpy, lonely, bitter people… looking for someone to be mad at…. for their crappy life.

4. Ask yourself this question.. “Am I the kind of person that people want to be around”.. if your answer is no, don’t feel sorry for yourself, make a decision to change.

This doesn’t mean being obsessed with, or insecure about, what people think of you.
No, it means being more socially aware, less self-indulgent, more realistic, more practical and more solution-oriented.

Be the that person.
By choice.
If you don’t wanna be the perpetual pain in the ass, ignored and avoided by the masses… then think different and do different to create different.
Give people a reason to want to hang out with you.

Sympathy… not a good reason.

5. Real happiness is much more about the internal stuff than it will ever be about the external stuff… so stop letting the external stuff dictate your level of joy, happiness and fulfillment. As I’ve said many times on this site “your world will change, when you change”.

Enjoy your day (or night) Groovers, make it amazing by choice, surprise yourself, do something generous and kind for someone else while expecting nothing in return… and here, let’s all have a group hug…

( ) … just for the English teachers.

Say hi and lemme know where yer from.