The glass is more than half full

Every day advertising and the media generally bombard us with messages telling us we need things we don’t need and insinuating we are inadequate if we don’t have these things. Women have it a lot worse than men: they are continually told, for example, that only young is beautiful and that they must try to hide the signs of aging instead of just growing old gracefully and shamelessly. It’s easy to let these stupid messages and bad values get you down – you might start feeling others are more fortunate than you, you might start wanting more, feel relatively impoverished and start to suffer from status anxiety.

To remedy this problem, this assault on your happiness, begin by rejecting the vacuous claims of most advertising and all of the associated products and services. Next, remember that you are extremely lucky to even be in a position to read these words rather than swatting flies from your face and wondering where the next bowl of rice will come from, if it comes at all. Consider the fact you are lucky to be able to see and think, consider all the negative things that have not happened to you, how you live in a relative democracy and proportionately, how very lucky you are.

Next consider that the fact that those who have more than you, are certainly not as a consequence necessarily happier (as I have written before). And finally consider that the opportunity is always open to you to make the best of the remains of your day.

The glass for you if you are reading these words is more than half full, and don’t let them tell you otherwise.