Trying to make my glass a little more half full

Since some folks despise me and rag on me for my cynicism at times, I took matters into my own hands and read a book on the wonderful effects of spreading sunshine around.

Seriously, though, How Full Is Your Bucket? is a really easy read.  I got through it in under an hour and I'm by no means the swiftest reader on the planet.

The premise is simple:  You can fill others' buckets with encouragement and in doing so fill your own, or you can dip into others' buckets with negative comments and find yourself living a shorter, less productive, less fulfilling, sicklier, and more stressful life.

In general I'm more of an encouraging person than not, but as with all things it's something I can get better at.  When it comes to hearing about other bloggers' successes with debt reduction, for example, I know I'm very encouraging.  When it comes to the outlook for the economy and the safety of our investments, though, I'm more cynical.  That cynicism is not directed at anyone in particular, but at the prospect of future economic events.

There is a distinction to be made between sounding a warning and grinding an axe, and I hope that I lean more toward the warning than the axe.  Grinding the axe is fun for the grinder, but it wears thin after a while with everyone else nearby as they get irritated by the little flecks of metal in their eyes.  As much as I buy what Kunstler predicts in The Long Emergency, I tire of his blog really quickly because he's grinding an axe.  He's already warned me and affected my thinking profoundly; I don't need to hear it all the time or I'll go nuts.  I imagine the same would hold true if I doomed and gloomed every day on this blog.

(But you're always welcome to cast a dark cloud over this pesky character's blog.  Or launch a DoS attack against him.  Or pwn him.)