Against Cheer

I like the following response to the old question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?"

To the engineer, the glass is overbuilt.

It's all in your frame of reference.

I am just messing around on a Sunday afternoon, enjoying this interview with Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Antidote, subtitled Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.  Here it is on Amazon, where you can look through the Table of Contents and read an excerpt.  It strikes me as resting firmly on such Buddhist concepts as accepting uncertainty and being with the moment instead of trying to shape the moment or your mood or someone else's behavior to your liking.

As for the graphic, originally posted by Selin Jessa, it interprets beautifully for me:  the glass is full - just maybe not full of what you want to drink. That doesn't mean you have to strive to want what you have - just be with it, not resisting, as you dangle off the mountainside (a reference to an excerpt from chapter four of the book).

Here is a bit from the end of the interview, when Burkeman was asked what he took away from writing the book:

I think what I've really learned is to have a lot of different tools at my disposal for when I'm not [happy]. It's not that I sail through life in some completely serene state, but that the problems and the obstacles and the irritations can be dealt with more swiftly when you are not locked into this idea that you have to stamp them out; that you have to make yourself feel motivated, for example, before you can get on with things that need doing; that there's something terribly, terribly wrong with not feeling incredibly excited and cheerful every moment of the day.

So, hey, have a nice day, and don't cheer up.