Is the glass half full or half empty?

The eternal dilemma: is the glass half full or is the glass half empty? Somehow the answer to this question, puts you in a category of people: optimists and pessimists. Or in a 3rd one, the “smart”(asses) that are calling themselves realists.

Why do we feel the need to put, the way we view the world in one of the categories? Optimist and pessimist. Why do we feel the need to adhere at the one of the two? Because being an optimist sound more fun or because being a pessimist make you feel like a rebel?

Yesterday, I was having a chat with a friend and somewhere in the discussion, I told her: “You should be more optimistic” and the discussion went sideways on the philosophy of life from here, but that’s a story for another time.

The point here is that I said “You should be more optimistic”. I really don’t know why i’ve said it. Was it right? Was it wrong? I don’t really know, but how many times we end up a discussion with this exact phrase “You should be more optimistic” or “You are just a pessimist, the world isn’t that bad”?. We usually want to cheer up our friend and show him that we are there for him. But does it really work? From my experience, most of the time we annoy our friend with this kind of remark.

And this is because we can't be sure that our view of the world is compatible with the one of our interlocutor. We live different lives, feel different experience and see the world through different eyes. The same experience could have different meaning for two persons that experienced it. The same experience could have different meaning to the same person.

So how can we ask a someone, a friend, to be more optimistic or to tone down their excitement. Because sometimes too much excitement is annoying to people as well.

I don’t think any person in the world is 100% optimistic or 100% pessimistic all the time. You can’t. I’ve tried to be optimistic all the time. It’s a hard job to see only the good side of the world. Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but it’s not that dark either.

I think we should take a neutral approach on this kind of things. Either if a person is optimistic or pessimistic, it’s ok. It’s their life and they choose how to live it. We should accept that the person in front of us has a different view of the world. And this is perfectly fine. We are supposed to be different. Life wouldn't be fun if we weren't.

So how do we answer the question: Is the glass half full or half empty? Both, the answer is both.

Image source: Pixabay