Have you ever heard the saying, “you can either see a glass half empty or a glass half full”? It feels like a dumb saying sometimes, but it’s actually a little accurate. If your first thought is that the glass of water is half-empty, you’ll realize you tend to think pessimistically about a lot of the situations in your life. If your first thought is that the glass is half-full, you’ll realize that you have an optimistic outlook on the events happening. Now neither one is wrong, each one is correct and has a reason, but, at the end of the day, it’s just a glass of water.
It’s not about how empty it is or how full it is, it’s about the fact that it’s just a glass of water. This is the clarity that happiness will bring. You’re not so negative that you can’t see the good, and you’re not so positive that you can’t see the bad, but you’re happy that you have a glass of water.
Being happy isn’t being optimistic or always being positive. Being happy is being satisfied with what you have, even with a hunger for more. I was never an optimistic person. I was more pessimistic, looking only at the bad of a situation. When I changed, I became more optimistic, but that would force me to only look at the positives. When I was finally happy, it wasn’t about the bad and the good, it was about the experience and the lesson learned.
Let’s put it like this, your glass will never be full. So looking at a glass of water and determining if it’s half-empty or half-full won’t do you any good. But realizing that the glass of water is just a glass of water will provide you more clarity than looking at it any other way.
Life isn’t just bad and life isn’t just good, it’s just life. It can be good and it can be bad, it’s about the way you see it. It’s like yin and yang. There’s bad in the good, and there’s good in the bad, but you’ll never see that unless you have that clarity that’s given by the full picture.
You shouldn’t say your life is terrible because of one event. You haven’t even experienced the good that’s in the bad, and trust me, there’s almost always good in the bad. But you shouldn’t say that life is just amazing because there’s always bad in the good.
The key is to realize that life is life. And that’s not to say that it’s boring or it’s nothing to compliment or insult because sometimes, life can be all the bad words and all the good words, but just keep in mind that all your experiences and your lessons learned ARE life.
The questions you need to ask yourself are: even though there can be so much bad, are you looking for the good? Even though there can be so much good, are you looking for the bad?
Clarity is provided through happiness, but happiness is not optimism. Happiness is accepting that where you are is where you are for now as you continue on the path for so much more. Happiness is acceptance, and through acceptance is clarity.