Is Your Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full?

People are so different. You can take a glass and fill it half way. Some people will describe the glass as half-empty while others will describe it as half-full. Why do some people see the negative in a situation while others see the positive?

I think a lot has to do with our perspective. Let’s take 32 degrees. The first time in the fall that the temperature drops to 32 degrees, everyone is complaining about the bitter cold. However, after a string of sub-zero days in the winter, 32 degrees feels like a heat wave. What has changed? 32 degrees is 32 degrees. The only thing to have changed is our perspective.

Look at 6:00 am. Every day people get up for work at 6:00 am and feel tired and bleary going into the day. Take that same person on November 15th (Deer hunting season), and he (or she) is up at 5:00 and sitting wide awake in the freezing cold (and sometimes rain) by 6:00 am. The time is the same, the perspective is what has changed.

Do you see your life as a never-ending series of bad things happening to you day after day? Do you see it as something careening out of control? Do you feel like you are always standing on the edge of a disaster which is right around the corner?

Or do you see you life as ordered and complete. Do you believe that there are good things out there that are going to happen to you sooner or later? Do you feel that even though some bad things are in your life, the weight of the good outweighs the bad?

I believe that the issue is perspective. If you believe that there is a Creator that is alive and active in this world, you will believe that all things can work together for good. You have a belief that there is a benevolent Being who made the Earth and its inhabitants for a purpose. Most importantly, you believe that there is someone looking out for your interests that has a bit of clout in this world.

If you do not believe in a Creator, you are left with a pretty glum sense of the things around you. You are the product of the blind process of evolution. Worse yet, there is no purpose in life other than to live and then to die. Such a hopeless view of the world can only lead you to despair.

Looking at the glass, you have to make a choice. Will you decide to call the glass half-empty or half-full? It is a decision. Your “predisposition” to emptiness or fullness is ultimately based upon your larger view of life. Choose well.