Gotta chime in on the optimism. Between MMM and J*shua K*nn*n (I know he can freak out when he founds himself mentioned somewhere), it's really made a huge difference in my life. I was always a problem solver with an internal locus of control, but somehow this tipped it into feeling much happier all the time. It's weird.
You know what's a weird specific thing like y'all are talking about but I didn't find on MMM is this thing I learned from reading the journal published online of someone who had done the Peace Corps and had a bad, demoralizing experience. In one of the entries she's talking about how the villagers view her as a source of resources because she has so much more than everyone there (even though she lived on, by American standards, a very small amount), which is counter to the goal of the program; the volunteer's impact is supposed to come from their teaching not their contribution to the local economy. Anyway, that's the context in which she mentions that the little kids hang around her place while she's making breakfast in the mornings and they snatch her eggshells out of the trash and scrape out and eat the excess left in the shell. Next time I made eggs, I tried that, and lo and behold there's always extra that doesn't come out on its own. I mean, I don't eat it raw like the kids, it's just extra egg that I get to add to whatever dish is going on.
