Half Glass Full or Empty? How Much Does That Weight Weigh?

I am going to change it up a little bit for this blog post.  This topic is something that everyone can relate to and maybe when you are going through a life stressor or worry you will think back to this post.  I actually previewed this blog with the wife before I decided to write it and she said “Wow, for once you make sense.” That is why I thought I should share this with you because for once I make some sense.  So here it goes.  

We have all heard of this phrase. “Are you a half glass full or half empty person?” If you go around and ask a few people this question you will hear them say “Yes, I am a half glass full type of person!” But are they really?  In my opinion, I think the majority of people would say they view life in the phrase of  half glass full but they really let things suck up that water in the glass.  There are times in life where we let our stresses and worries get the best of us. This is just a part of human nature.  Lately, I have seen more stress in my life and even some friends that I know going through a rough patch.  So hopefully this post will help me and others as well.  

So lets go back to the half glass full phrase.  Here is a little exercise to do the next time you get a glass of water.   Take your glass and fill it up with water half way.   Ok, now take that glass and dump the water out.  If you look in the glass you will still see that there is water, right? There may not be a lot of water maybe a few drops but the water is still there.   If you think about your life in the half glass full mode and you have a worry or life stressor which makes you want to dump the water from the glass you will still have water in the glass.  The water to me in my glass is my outlook on life and my positive attitude on life. 

When anyone runs into a life stressor or problem sometimes it really gets the best of them.  Your thoughts will turn to negativity and you start thinking about possible outcomes of a scenario. But what does thinking negative do to a person? It does nothing but fuel the stressor or worry even more.   But what I want to start thinking about and for others to think about is that glass of water.  As hard as it is to deal with a life stressor or worry just remember there is still water in that glass as hard as life may seem at times.  Those few drops of water left in your glass is your choice on how you view your life.

If the half glass full or empty phrase didn’t help you I have another approach to managing your life stress or worry.  We have all seen dumbbells and I assume most of us have at least picked one up in our life.  If we equate our stress or worry in life to holding a dumbbell it might help alleviate some of that burden we carry due to our stress or worry in life.  

We all know how much a five pound dumbbell weighs. But we do not know how long you or anyone else can hold that five pound dumbbell for before we start to notice how heavy it really is.  If you hold the five pound dumbbell out straight for a minute it is very light.  If you hold that same five pound dumbbell out straight for hours you notice your arm starts to feel how heavy this five pound dumbbell is.  A few hours go by and your arm may start to cramp up and get tired or even numb. This five pound dumbbell now feels like a hundred pounds and you may just want to drop the weight on the ground.  In each of these scenarios, the actual weight of the dumbbell doesn’t change.  But the longer you hold it the heavier it feels.  I think we can all agree to that!

Our stress and worry in life is like carrying that five pound dumbbell around.  If you sit and think about your stress and worries in life for a little while it doesn’t really bother you.  If you think about your stress and worries longer it starts to consume you and you start creating more stress and worry in your life.  If you sit and think about your stress and worry all day long you will start to feel numb and incapable of doing anything until you drop the stress and worry.  It is just like the five pound dumbbell scenario.  Do you want to carry a five pound dumbbell straight out all day long? I sure do not want to carry this five pound dumbbell all day long. 

So if you read this entire post you may be thinking what is the point of all this.  I want you to remember that there is still water in your glass no matter how much stress or worry you think you have and that dumbbell still weighs five pounds.  It is up to you to determine how heavy that dumbbell gets in your life.   To me, we are in charge of how we view our daily life stress or worry.  We ultimately either make our stress and worry heavier than what it should be or we minimize it through our attitude on life.  No matter what happens in a day make sure when you wake up the next day your stress and worry from yesterday is no longer weighing you down.  

 

This little girl makes all the worries in world go away!