Is the glass half full or half empty… April 30, 2008
Posted by Visionary in Life, Philosphy, belief, ethics, morality, politics, religion.Tags: belief, ethics, Life, morality, philosophy, politics, religion
trackback
Sitting down to write this, I have just realised that a lot of my wisdom seems to have come from interaction with my children. I knew that having and raising kids had changed me and I had learned a huge amount from being a parent. Its only just occurred to me though just how much I’ve learned from getting down to their level of understanding mentally in order to be able to answer their questions in a way that they can understand.
Eight seems to have been a formative year for my daughter philosophically speaking. One day whilst I was sitting on the toilet, my 8 year old daughter came to speak to me. It doesn’t matter where I hide - there’s no respect for privacy in our house 
“Daddy, I’ve heard people talking about a the glass being half full or half empty. Which do you think it is?”
Once I managed to get over the shock of being asked this question by an eight year old, I prepared to launch into my pre-formulated response. After all this is one of those Lego structures I finished years ago and I was pretty sure I knew the right answer.
I don’t know why, but before I spoke, I decided to revisit the question and try to see it from my daughters perspective. I’m glad I took the time because this time I came up with a completely different answer. It was probably 20 years since I had last thought about it but I was sure my answer wouldn’t have changed. Not only had it changed, it had changed to something I hadn’t even considered as as possibility last time.
Rather than just tell you what answer I came up with, I’d like to hear other peoples response to this question. SF you think you know what I’m going to say, well lets find out if your right. Please consider your responses and write your reply before reading other peoples comments. I want to run this like a small survey to see what the split of opinions is.
How do you see it? Is the glass half full or half empty?
Who’s going to go first?
It’s both. Now, is that a cop-out answer, or what?
Seriously, the question originally is one about contentment: are you or aren’t you content with where you are, what you have, and who you are?
Me, I’m perfectly content. So the glass is half full.
But I also recognize that there is always room for more in my life that will give fulfillment. In other words, I have by no means arrived, I am not the man I have the potential to be, I have not seen, touched or tasted all that I would like to. And in that respect, the glass is half empty.
Which is not pessimistic or discontented… it’s a very good thing.
I have never seen the glass as half empty - even on my down days. I simply do not think of glasses being half empty - If I removed half of the perceived emptiness, would it then be 1/4 empty? Could I add another half cup of emptiness to the cup to make it full; would doing so remove what’s there - would it’s contents overflow. The emptiness has no bearing to me.
BTW, what color are your eyes?
Peace, Light and Love,
CordieB.
Thanks Robert & Cordieb for your thoughts on this one. I want to wait untill a few more share their ideas before I do.
What an unexpected question, my eyes are blue, why?
This might be a weird answer but how I have always seen it is:
Im happy that I have a glass at all, and that it holds what it is I need to sustain me…. I am sure that God always fills that glass with the amount that I will need for me to thrive and survive.
Sheesh talk about pressure
The glass is indeed both depending how you look at it, both can be optimistic if we realise them. A glass half empty means that it needs filling, that you aren’t doing enough in life and it is a sign to do more.
A glass half full is a symbol of optimism but also how you live your life, it is having an open mind and the energy of living within you, you thrive to make the glass more full… half empty, half full at the end of the day there is always more to put in it
In the normal metaphorical sense it is ones out look on life, are you a pessimist or an optimist, you are the latter for you are always searching for a better way not accepting things as they are.
*sits on hands patiently for Visionaries answer*
Hey, Thanks a lot for sharing your perspective on my blog. Just goes to say a lot about people having to follow their own already laid down beleifs and the thought process of what others may deem as fit.
Wonderful Post.
I would have a combination of answer from Sanity and Amber:
First thanking that I have the opportunity to hold a glass in my hand - i.e my life and what I add or substract out of it; is completely in my control - based on like a steering wheel in my hand and I have the power to change directions. Similarly, at what level do I decide that my glass is half full or half empty lies within us as the power to fill and substract is within us - considering we already have the glass
@Visionary - I sent you the lollipop prize - I wanted the color to match the color of your eyes. I’ve resent it because I discovered a typo in the first send. Peace!
My glass is half full and half empty and I love it!!
I used to focus on the empty half for most of my life until the near-death experience make me look at it much closer, everytime I see the half full it makes me apreciate the half empty - with out it I would not even notice my half full.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their point of view. I guess it’s time for me to let SF get off her hands so she can type some more amazing stuff for us all to read
The different answers show that we each have a unique point of view on the glass, which is inevitable as we are each looking at the glass from the very personal perspective of our own experiences, values and beliefs. Since how we see the glass clearly differs from one person to the next, it is a personal choice.
If how we see things is based on choice and not on reality, trying to decide who is right or wrong becomes irrelevant. The only question of value is “does the way I see the glass help me to live my life or not”.
There may come a day when seeing the glass in this way no longer serves us. If we forget that our view isn’t real or just one of an infinite number of choices, we may end up trapped by a choice we once made long ago. We have to try to see the glass fresh each time we ask the question.
Another important thing to be aware of is that the question I asked channelled your thinking in a certain direction and limited the options available in your replies. I wonder how different the answers would have been if the question was – “What do you see”.
OK, I’ve put it off long enough, so what’s my answer.
When I answered my daughter I told her some people say it is half full and others say it is half empty but in reality it is both. I explained that focusing on the full part would be considered an optimistic point of view and might make you feel better. I also said that focusing on the empty part might be considered a pessimistic point of view and might make you feel worse. I said neither is right or wrong.
As soon as I had answered, I immediately saw it in another way. I realised that focusing on the full could also be a pessimistic trait – someone who doesn’t want to face and deal with reality might try to ignore or blank out the empty. Conversely, someone who sees the empty and refuses to accept the full is never going to be able to relax into life because the full will never be enough for them and they will never be able to use the gifts they have to their full potential.
Just to prove the point that we should try to see the glass afresh each time we look. When I wrote this article, I saw something I had never noticed before - The glass is completely full (can you work this one out)
Love V
Ah, it’s an old one, actually… half-filled with water and half-filled with air.
But very good responses by everyone, I agree. And it is interesting ho an illustration meant to evoke one of two black-and-white responses can be made more “real” with just a little contemplation.
Fantastic post and I fell the same way that V has responded but just not know how to put it in writing specially when it comes to English ; )
The glass is completely full, mmmmmmmmmmmm I see it as a well balance perspective Is that what you’ve noticed, well balance in life? Like Yin&Yang, black&White, Poor&Rich, Live&Dead and so on.
I believe that well balance is a great foundation of everythings in life and on Earth. Without one you will not notice it the other.
The question is “How” we can come together as human species and apply this balance to save our children from our modern Earth-chocking life style we created.
Phew my hands were starting to go numb from sitting on them so long
Ta for your kind words. Hmmm in reality life is never empty it is just us that choose to see it that way - interesting answer re looking at afresh each time
*shakes the hands out*
Excellent Post, Visionary - and all the answers were quite conscious provoking. Thanks for that bit of discovery; my cup runneth over . . . .
It’s both. It has to be.
Well said Cordie -
The glass is truly always full. Because the question wasn’t is it full or empty of x? Just was it full or half empty?
Robert, it may be an old one, most everything is
but this was genuinely the first time I saw it. The glass is hal full of water and half full of air.
Cordie, thanks for spilling some of your abundant over flow here.
Amber, your right of course, it was a very leading question wasn’t it. Whilst we think we might have the answers to our questions, did we set the questions or did someone else? Should we be asking something else instead?
Thanks all for engaging and communicating.
Love V
The first question to ask is, why has
the idea that half full is positive and half empty is negative, been the accepted archetype of this catch all philosophical question?
In reality they are two halves of the same whole. the whole being the glass. Regardless of the fact that the space in between the top of the glass and the top of the water is not empty, it is imperative to know that without the empty there is no full. meaning, that if there were nothing to contain the water ( the enclosed empty space) the water would not exist at that point in space.
Because the water would not exist without the empty, would that then imply that the empty space is more valuable than the water? making the half full scenario negative?(as if the water was an invading force?)
That inevitable downside to this entire philosophical question is that the individual is in some way forced to choose a side (half full/half empty..etc.) This I truely believe is the fundamental flaw in the human condition that we have created for ourselves on this planet. socially forced to pick a side, and shunning the other side as negative, ultimately failing to see that without the glass, neither
side would essentially exist (being in the space of the glass anyway)