When asked if I see the glass half empty or half full I’ve always replied that, of course, I see it half full.   Basically I am optimistic and tend to look at the brighter side of things of life.  Plus I like to think of myself as that half full kind of person.

But I was thinking about this today and it occurred to me that if I really saw a glass of water and thought about it would I sincerely think it was half full?  And I realized that “no” I wouldn’t.  Honestly sometimes I would probably think that the glass is half empty and be a bit sad that there is only half left and wish it were still full.

Does that make me a negative person?  What does it say about me? Am I really a half empty rather than a half full kind of person?  Perish the thought!  Half-full people are frowned upon, judged as being wrong for NOT looking at life as half full.   We are basically assigned to one of two categories in life:  either the half full or half empty folk.  And who wants to be associated with the half empty group?  No one, I suspect. Certainly not me.

So where does this leave me?  It leaves me considering two things.  One that I may be intrinsically a glass half empty person (or not) yet I have trained myself to become  a glass half full person.  Or it could be that this half empty/half full designation is a silly, one-dimensional way to view, categorize and separate us.

Everything has two sides.  A light and a shadow, a positive and a negative, a yin and a yang.  How we view situations, people, or even glasses of water depends on perspective, and oftentimes, timing.   As I stated, I am optimist, sometimes naively so.  I look for the best in a person or a situation, the lesson learned when wronged and the silver lining.  Yet I want more water in that glass and sometimes I see it as half empty.

We can retrain ourselves from looking at life from half empty to half full.   And quit judging ourselves or others harshly when they are seeing the glass as only half full.  We are not permanently doomed and defined by one simple test but can chose in any moment to redefine our view, perspective and therefore our destinies at will.

It’s really cool to be ok with seeing that glass as half empty and still being more than capable of seeing the world as half full.   Here’s to your glass always being half full and then being filled again.