Is your glass half-empty or is it half-full? We all know “glass half-empty” people. My avatar for these people is Eeyore, the pessimistic donkey from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh series. Some pop culture writers speculate that Eeyore suffers from a major depressive disorder, but I don’t know enough about donkey mental health to express an educated opinion.
But you can judge for yourself.
I have worked with many Eeyore lawyers over my career. They focus on potential negative outcomes and then feel gratified that they were right when bad things happen. Sometimes, this counts as a win because they were right, but even this type of “win” doesn’t inflate their moods very much.
You may have worked with Eeyore lawyers, too. Law has more pessimistic personalities than optimists. This is something I struggled with from the beginning of law school—I am a natural optimist and I felt like I had landed in some darker version of Oz where everyone was cynical, skeptical and so cool (at least when compared to me!
Wishing You Glasses Half-Full at Thanksgiving
