Half Full or Half Empty?

I've never quite figured out whether I am an optimist or a pessimist......is that glass half full or half empty?  Each glass seems to be a bit different to me, so I can't seem to come up with a consistent answer to that question. On most days I can come by an answer easily, but while it's half full on some days it is very clearly half empty on others.  Yeah, I know.....I think I over-analyze, too.

I'd love to be an eternal optimist.  Look at the world as everything being basically good.  As everything working out in the end.  Think the odds for most things are in our favor.  See people live happily ever after.  Trust that God has got it all handled and we get to just watch and see it all play out.  And I do believe that most days.   I usually believe that at my heart level.

But then there are the thoughts in the crevices of my mind.  The lack of trust that the good will last.  The part just waiting for the days when those insurmountable problems crop up.  When I remember that we live in a sinful world.  When I see people suffering, not of their own accord, not by something that they chose to invite into their lives, but by something that intrudes upon them anyway.  It eats away what was once the beautiful life they created for themselves and totally takes over.  There is the person whose life cancer tries to steal.  There is the person who had the job they loved, they worked hard at it for 30 years, they thought they would retire from it and then come in one day and find out that it has been eliminated.  Or the person who thought they were inviting in that prince or princess into their home and it turns out to be a wolf or a witch.  It's harder to see the happily ever after in the midst of the pain.  (Yeah, I read a lot of fairy tales growing up.  So????)

When it gets down to it, though, there are days you want the glass to be half empty and there days when you want that glass to be half full.  Because it all depends on what is in the glass!  I had my first colonoscopy this year.  If you haven't had one, I promise you.....you want to believe the glass is half empty.  The fact that your mind is telling you it is half full is proof that sometimes your mind is very evil.  BUT.....when you get that pronouncement of good health or they find polyps or cancer at early stages and take them away, you remember that every drop of that nasty liquid was as a whole very, very good.  At least you remember that for a while.

Because of my polyp, I will have to have another colonoscopy in five years instead of the standard ten.  I suspect when that time comes to consume the liquid to prep for it, I will see that glass as very, very full.  And very, very gross.  So would that make me an optimist or a pessimist?  But then I think that maybe somewhere in the world today there is someone altogether brilliant, creating great alternatives for that foul liquid.  In five years they could remove that question from the equation.  I think I am going to choose to believe this will happen....which must mean I have optimistic leanings.  But I won't be surprised if it doesn't....so........maybe I am a pessimist?

Half full, or half empty....it's all a matter of perspective.   Sometimes we want the glass to be full, sometimes we want it to be empty.  Sometimes we notice the good, sometimes we notice the bad.  Someone's optimism is usually someone's pessimism.  But when it gets down to it, sometimes you just need to enjoy the act of being offered a glass, tasting what's in it, and not waste time measuring.  Instead you get to decide whether you want to drink or lay down the glass and walk away. Choices are so very often a good thing.

So now....am I a realist or an idealist?  Guess that is a subject for another day.