“You’re a glass half empty kind of person. I am a glass half full.”
Really, was my immediate response. A hint of sarcasm perhaps, but mostly intrigue. I would like to consider myself a rather joyful, upbeat individual, but then again what we consider ourselves to be and what we are often do a bit of colliding. Others cannot know you in the way you know yourself. They cannot get in your head and compensate your thought patterns and ideology on life itself, even if they are similar to yours. That is because each of our individual stories are different. Every experience, every affirmation received, every comment spewed, every relationship broken or relationship restored perpetually feed into our understanding of ourselves. Still our hearts and heads are so intertwined, naturally, that sometimes the only way to see ourselves correctly is to take a step back.
Friends are beautiful for that. They’re the only ones who truly can do that actually. Especially spouses. So when Jordan perceives me to be a “glass half empty kind of person”, defensiveness should really have no place. He sees me in a way I cannot see myself, and to ignore his perspective would be to convince myself that I know all there is to know about me.
So for the sake of due diligence, it seemed a little self examination was called for. Pessimism does not sound too admirable of a trait, and perhaps even a thief. Just listen to this definition:
Pessimism: a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future.
Okay I will rebuttal the statement perhaps a touch. Although admittedly the statement comes at a time when, and perhaps for many of us, the future looks a bit bleak only because the present hangs in the balance. While there are certain things I am confident in – our being provided for, the health of our marriage, the joy of our children – there are those circumstances around us that, I will admit, diminish my confidence in what might come to pass.
There is risk in hoping for something too deeply only to see that longing unfulfilled, and it would seem that pessimism keeps me from hoping too greatly for that which will never be mine.
My word, it would seem I am indeed a glass half empty kind of person.
Although I don’t believe this was always so. We began watching The Santa Claus the other night, and though our Christmas tree twinkled marvelously among the flickering fireplace, all that was diminished by the heartache of a young boy who would rather not stay with his Dad for Christmas, urging his mom to pick him up first thing in the morning. The moment actually got me a bit teary eyed as I considered the hardship of divorce on children and the implications of a broken home. Yes we can dress the dismay up with Tim Allen wearing a velvet red suit and becoming Santa Claus, but the realistic parts of this film hinge on division from one household to the next, with a child caught in the middle.
My childhood was not perfect, except it was. My home whole, my family close. We were by no means free from heartache, seeing my brother deal with a cancerous tumor on his brain, while his recovery was not the final word on cancers place in our family. Yet even tears of sorrow in childhood did not keep me from believing that all I dared dream could be accomplished once my days of adulthood ensued. Longings were not in question of being fulfilled, so long as I worked strategically and aggressively enough to see those things come to fruition.
Faith certainly played a part in my upbringing as well, and I walked into my independent self with a deep calling, as is so often described, presuming that if what you ache for becomes a passion you are called to, then certainly all that you hope for will come to pass. Not effortlessly, and yet somehow with much ease.
Yet life moved along. Some aspirations fulfilled in just the way I had hoped. Others in a way not exactly what I had in mind. And still other longings left for daydreams. Some moments have been left to meticulous planning. Others carved out of the unexpected. Still others left as a humble reminder that faith does not ensure all longings are to be met, while you may watch those who seem to gain the world without wisdom as their anchor.
I did not understand that faith does not guarantee all that you want, yet when enacted, will engage all that you need.
Upon pulling out of Jordan the basis for his observation just a bit more, he clarified that he would not flat out define me as a pessimist, but he has noted that my first response to a circumstance or relationship is not the good of that moment, but rather, what it is that strikes me as less than ideal. Perhaps I have come to develop unfairly high standards, whether of people or situations. Just ask Jordan about celebrating my birthday. He learned rather quickly that I would not let an ordinary day pass in its place, and my goodness, some dessert better have a candle in it. All those years of exquisite birthdays as a child meant that the bar was set tremendously high, and following in that was no easy trek.
Ideal was to be expected.
Yet have I wrongly made ideal simply a standard over that which can be measured? Is ideal subject merely to my whim and therefore all too readily able to break or bend?
No one set the standard that birthdays must involve blowing out a few candles, and yet they became that for me. To such an extent that anything other than became lesser than, and I lost the beauty of all that which was in front of me.
So back to all that is now. A less than ideal time. Although by whose standard? Now mind you, a business in near proximity to closing, a parent hospitalized by a deadly virus, a financial burden that brings your monthly rent far too near your monthly income, are all struggles to be contended with that are by no means void of challenge or heartache.
Yet to a pessimist, the ideal becomes such a lacking that hope is lost rather readily. Whereas to live with that glass half full – even a quarter full if that is all that seems visible – is to believe that hope is not that far removed. It is to live in the anticipation of favor over the dismal perspective of loss.
The irony being that loss is only given to those who receive it, and when you fear loss you will never be able to embrace fullness. You will question what you are given. You will examine what feels like favor. Life will always be less than ideal. Life will always be half empty.
My pessimism is showing.
EXPOSITION: Consider yourself. In any given situation or relationship, what is your immediate, more natural response? What do you want to delve into in conversation with your spouse after a week away with extended family? What do you want to divulge upon wrapping up your work day? What are you quick to share when it comes to your children?
RISE: Whenever you find yourself rushing to the glass-half-empty, challenge yourself to adjust your perspective. You might find that the initial shift diminishes your original “ideal”, or at least gives you a viewpoint of hope before succumbing to the loss of “less than”.
DENOUEMENT: The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. (Words in a letter from Peter)