MonuMental

Is the glass half full or is it half empty?

We all kind of “want” to say the glass is half full because it means we look at life with a certain appreciation for the simple things and an optimism that means we are typically more pleased than we are unfulfilled. I certainly think I muster those traits pretty well, though sometimes with effort, but if you had to officially register under one status, like it were an option between two open bubbles on a test form, I’d say I’m a glass is half empty person.

It’s hard to think about the answer so easily as what it means versus what you perceive the question to be. The full part is what you notice first, because it’s there. There’s something physically there to look at. But I think a hallmark of wisdom is to always consider the other side, to always remember what you don’t know, and to try to imagine what might be missing from the picture you’re being shown.

So my mind is on the empty part of the glass longer than it is on the full part of the glass.

You hear one side of a story, but what else might there be? What’s missing? What was left out?

Or, you’ve made it to a certain level of accomplishment or expertise in something, but how much further might you be capable of reaching?

The potential for the empty part of the class is like the uncarved stone.

Under this philosophy, the ‘glass is half full’ people I think might be someone who can find something new that they like and fixate specifically on that one thing, whereas others would naturally move forth thinking to themselves “If this thing that is good is out there, then what else like it might be out there?”

I can find the half-full stereotype (philosophical stereotype, I mean) to be a group who takes things more literally or at surface level. When a situation comes along they may stay centered on a focal point and reflexively fail to consider something beyond to the point that they might not change the subject of their focus until the next thing appears. There’s no right or wrong here.

I just think I’m always a half-empty glass kind of person because… the full part is obvious, and the empty part is something to consider.

That’s where your growth is.

The filled part is what is. The empty half is what could be.

The full half is the now. The empty half could be the future.

Where I am versus where I want to be.

What I am and what I could be later.