Half Full or Half Empty

I'm sure we have all seen this photo above before; or at least, a version of it. It essentially is asking "what do you see?"

So? What do you see?

Do you view it as half full? Seeing the positives of the situation.

Do you view it as half empty? Only seeing the negatives?

How about neither and seeing it for what it really is... a glass of water. Pff. Who care how much water is in it.

Or another another way of seeing it for what it really is... water and gas. (who cares, this isn't science class)

How about seeing the situation in a way that only you want to see it in the real world. Just like how you can dream so hard that it feels so real and you wake up disappointed and genuinely sad for something that didn't happen.

But there's always two sides to every coin. You could view it as half empty and half full. Which in a sense is true; but more on that later.

Now this next one is tricky. Actually, you know what, it really isn't. You see what you want to see, but everyone else may not be able to see it too. It's your "imaginary island" (utopia: dictionary.com) that you retreat to when you want anything and everything inside of it to be what you want, when you want it, and how you want it. This can be dangerous, especially if brought into the real world. Not everyone can be in a world like Katie's from Horton Hears a Who: "in my world, we eat rainbows and poop butterflies." You're welcome for that image now.

Moving on...

It is not water...? Okay. Sure. Call it what you want as long as it's in liquid form otherwise there would be no point to this.

And finally, my personal favorite, be creative. I see a glass of water (no matter how much liquid it contains) I will either drink it or put a paint brush in it. But I digress. That's not the point I am trying to make.

Here's the real idea.

Or better yet, here's the real question:

What did you just do to those glasses of water?

I'm just going to say it. You stereotyped it.

Here's my reasoning behind why I say this:

We can only see a moment in time, or in this case a moment the artist chose to draw these glasses of water. We don't know the answers to the following questions:

• How much water was poured into the glass in the first place?

•Has any water been drunk from it?

•When was it poured?

The list of questions could go on...

The fact still remains that you're being prejudice and judgmental about something that you have no context to even begin arguing a solid opinion for. I'm no saying you don't have an opinion, but are you able to back up your opinion with more than just "that's what I see". My follow up question would be "what did it look like an hour ago" and the answer shouldn't be "I don't know".

The same thing can be said about people.

We look at people as we walk through a mall or eat at a restaurant and "judge" them, for lack of a better term, because of what we see in that moment. We can choose to see the positive, the negative, the surreal, the island, the whatever; but the only thing we don't get to see is what led that person to where they are now?

Something to think on when you see someone you're about to form unprepared idea about in your head. "How did this person get to this point in their life?", "When did this person become so happy", "What put that smile on their face?", "Why are they sad?"

So?

How do you view it?