Including Eeyore

As a psychiatrist I see my fair share of Eeyores. I think that the denizens of the Hundred Acre Woods are somewhere between a family and a neighborhood, and the way they allow Eeyore to be part of the gang is a pretty good example that the rest of us could learn from. Much like clinically depressed humans, Eeyore sees the world all too clearly. He is right more often than he is wrong and while what he predicts is not what the rest of them are hoping for, he is not villified for his clear eyed thinking. He is the friend who will tell you what they think, the unvarnished truth, and the glass is definitely half empty, maybe on the brink of running out completely, but you will not be blindsided when things go south, because you have been properly warned. The funny thing is that I am probably more like Eeyore than any other character in the Winnie the Pooh ouevre in my personal life, but in my work life I have a sometimes unsuitably rosy outlook, and that needs a coutner balance. I lost my work Eeyore when I switched jobs recently, and it strikes me that I need to find a new one.