Contrast

Coming back from vacation is like coming down off of a really mind-altering trip.

You feel like you’ve been given a new lease on life, but you know it’s only a matter of time before every-day-life comes to piss on your picnic…

Every time it becomes a question of “How long can i keep up this positive frame of reference? How long before i get kicked down off my cloud and forget the simple joys of life again?”

Contrast is necessary though… i dare say it’s fundamental to our very reality.. light and darkness need each other in order to exist… so in the end it’s all about seeing your glass as half-full, right?

So why is there such a tendency for us to see the glass as half-empty? What is it about negativity that creeps in, relentlessly? Is it just me or does it seem like there are more people struggling to find peace in their lives than people who are habitually happy?

1 Comment

• 
  SeventhSwami October 20, 2008 at 9:30 pm

  10 Comments add a comment

  Pablo
  112 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 12:34 PM
  > So why there such a tendency for us to see the glass as half-empty?<
  I mostly tend to vacillate. However, I know that if I stick around long enough, someone’s bound to ask me to wash the glass.

  elise
  265 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 2:19 PM
  because…

  …old habits die hard.

  i overheard a conversation the other day between 2 students.
  one asked the other, “how are you happy all the time?”
  the reply was, “i was just born this way.”

  i think it has a lot to do with how we are raised by our parents, our community and our society.

  just keep that positive light and hopefully YOU will get others to not be so negative.

  friendly jen
  162 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 3:29 PM
  I think that for me
  while I am generally a very happy person, I am still searching for that place where I belong. Where I feel I have found my calling in life. I have moments and glimpses now and again, but generally I feel lost and alone and this is where my personal unhappiness comes from this ambition.

  It takes a while to learn to look on the bright side. Sometimes ending up at the bottom of everything. I always keep in mind that things could be WAY worse than they are. And who am I to complain about my corporate job, when some people work at Mc Donalds their whole life to feed their 5 kids or some terrible shit like that.

  Swami
  262 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 3:39 PM
  “WacArnolds is tearing this family apart!!”

  Aaron
  24 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 5:52 PM
  Swami, you are sooo not on my list of pessimistic people, don’t give yourself too much trouble.

  As to struggling for peace and well-being my thought is yes. Our culture seems to be breeding unhappiness en masse these days, they found out its profitable.

  Ask a large group of people who see the glass half empty what true peace and happiness is to them you will get just a few altruistic themes. Ask that same group what makes them sad you will see hundreds of things that have nothing to do with them attaining those ideals of happiness. Most of us already have what we need to be happy, but we do tend to focus on the bad just because there is so much of it.

  becky
  108 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 6:01 PM
  I don’t have much to contribute other than to say I really like that image.

  Tigran
  100 Tue, September 25, 2007 – 6:16 PM
  i totally feel you man…
  and i came up with the solution this weekend at symbiosis…
  once babylon falls.. we throw a massive perminent festival out in the forest where we can learn to build a new community and learn of ways to become self sufficient…
  that way all the “yahoos”(new term for yuppies) get left behind in the cities to deal with the aftermath…. while we’ll be living the good life with friends and family…
  and our balance will be our work…

  by the way…today i heard a good phraze…
  something like… “work to live.. or live to work..”
  i rather work to live and have that be my balance…

  werd…

  Swami
  262 Wed, September 26, 2007 – 10:01 AM
  wow you guys have very enlightened responses to this.

  and yes becky I love that image.

  and no worries… i’m know i’m not too pessimistic and I’m definately not beating on myself…

  Cris
  569 Wed, September 26, 2007 – 1:32 PM

  It’s called… *drum rolls…

  Marketing.

  In the REAL World, the Game is survival.

  Not comparing volume contents of glasses.

  We have become isolated from Life by our own methods of dealing with it.

  And Marketing bridges that well…

  Chase the Never Ending Happiness Dangling on the Stick.

  Go Go… Carrot chasers…

  Cris
  569 Wed, September 26, 2007 – 1:36 PM

  Btw… As a Kid, back home, in Communist Romania, I was happy to get, non plant based, recycled and hard as cardboard old newspapers as toilet paper; when the over days and days of line-up relays there would not be any or there was never any to begin with, toilet paper for sale.

  Easy spells… Empty.

  Hard spells… Kick yourself in the ass to get it comfortable… Or survive…

  It means building insensitive mechanisms around insanity : functionality vs…wants…