Why is it that a person who says "The glass is half empty" is considered a pesimist?<P>I believe people do NOT understand the nature of terms such as positive, negative, optimism, pesimism. They fail to see that they are "relative" to the point of view of the person viewing them and as such are given misnomers that only make people feel bad.<P>Consider this :<P>A glass is completely EMPTY. Liquid is being poured into the glass and when it reaches the middle it stops.<P>"The glass is half FULL"<P>Why did we say that???? Because we saw the movement of the glasses contents go from EMPTY to HALF and therefor the direction made the decision for us to say its half FULL.<P>Another glass is filled to the brim and begins to leak... it continues to leak until it reaches the middle of the glass and stops.<P>"The glass is half EMPTY"<P>Again we chose to use this terminology because we saw that the glass WAS full and now it is only HALF.<P><BR>Is any of this being positive or negative? or does it simply reflect where we saw things begin from? Or where we see them going?<P>For some reason people in this world decide that terms like optimistic and positive are "GOOD" words and those like pesimistic and negative are "BAD" words... The only time we are ever called a "realist" is when someone else AGREES with us. If they DONT agree with us they call us either a pesimist or an optimist and yet our words have NOT changed at all.<P>The reason I am writing this is that I want people to see that others are NOT being pesimistic or optimistic... that in general they are probably being extremely realistic but your point of view clouds your judgement and instead you lash out with terminology to which you do not even understand its source.<P>Just think about it.

Wow! I love the way you think! It's the direction of the movement that makes the difference in the way we see things.

I think the biggest problem is that there is another element being overlooked: "hope".<BR>When we see someone who has a generally positive view of the world, someone who displays optimistice feeliings (note, I am not labelling anyone as an optimist here), we speak of that person having "hope". In our society of black and white, either this or that, the only natural conclusion to be drawn from someone with a negative view is that they have no hope. I think introducing the term 'realist', brings forth the grey area. There can be realistic optimists and realistic pessimists. I guess my question remains; 'why not move forward with a goal of happiness, as opposed to sorrow and disdain?'. <BR>And a final question - what if someone placed a glass with 50% water in it in front of you. You do not know where this glass began, full or empty, so is it half-full, or half-empty?

"Hope" - The belief that things always fill up ;-)<P>An optimist uses happiness to drive them, a pesimist uses sadness to drive them... while the realist uses what is THERE to drive them.<P>You asked if a glass of water was placed in front of me whether I would see it as half full or half empty. That depends on what I could tell about the glass ;-)<P>If I could see water lining the upper portions of the glass I would say it is half empty, but if the upper portion of the glass was dry I would say it is half full.<P>One indicates that once there was more water in there while the other shows the glass (which was not made with water already in it) had to be filled up.<P>Can you see how this is "realistic"? That is doesn't require either optimism or pesimism in order to exist... and to exist in things not born of a "hope" that something is when it is not... but instead exists because of what can be seen.<P>I am a seeker of truth (ironic isn't it TruthSeeker) and I perceive things that other people never notice... why is this?<P>"People are stupid... They believe something is true because they FEAR it is true or because they WANT it to be true"<P>That philosophy is the most truest I have ever encountered... From FEAR comes pesimism and from WANT comes hope... if you look with either of these you will NOT see what is truely there but only what you FEAR or WANT to be there..... Either extremes of that emotion cause blindness.<P>And so I look at things with neutral eyes... not "dead" eyes, but those eyes that only see what is there and not what I wish to be there.<P>Not many people can survive like this... they either get dragged down in depression or they NEED to have happiness to have the energy to continue on... But my strength comes from not requiring either of these to feed my purpose. I just *am*.

If someone places a glass in front of me and it contains liquid half its volume. I would first think, "Hey! Who drank the other half?"<P>=P<P>Ragston