What to do with a Half-empty Glass

Half empty; half full.  Until last autumn, I would have readily raised my hand to the roll call of “half-empties.”  I don’t know when I first heard of the two ways of looking at things, but whenever it was, I knew my worldview was through the glass half-empty.  Whatever I had was not enough.  Whatever I had accomplished was too little, did not compare favorably to what I should have accomplished in the same time or with the same effort.

In high school, I first learned of the “nature” and “nurture” perspectives as the cause of human behavior.  For years when I considered why I was a half-empty person, I framed it in terms of the nature/nurture question.  Was my way of looking at the world hard-wired when sperm met egg over fifty-five years ago?  Was there a particular experience, probably early in life, that caused this looking for the other shoe to fall?  Or was it some combination of nature and nurture:  I was born with a predilection toward glass-half-empty thinking, and it was cemented through early experience?

This kind of questioning is a “blame game.”  After all, I am not responsible for the limitations of my thinking.  My parents are, through their coupling or through my upbringing.  Or maybe it was the doctor’s fault when he kept me in the hospital after my birth and sent my mother home, teaching me impermanence in even a mother/son bond.

Tao philosophy recognizes the dual nature of all things.  There can be no dark without light; no good without evil; no half-full without half-empty.

I have noticed we humans spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out what we are best at and then convincing the world that is a very important thing to be good at.  And since I’m human and standing in front of you…Well, at least you are forewarned.

For example, Abraham Maslow decided humans strive to fulfill certain needs, the highest of which is “self-actualization.”  One could not become self-actualized until subsidiary needs had been met.  Academians, for whom self-actualization was a natural fit, thrust Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory on the rest of us and we too had to flail ourselves until we were self-actualized, unless of course we did not have our lower needs met, in which case we could blame our lack of self-actualization on unfulfilled physiological, safety, love or esteem needs.

Those with high IQs develop tests to show they have high IQs.  And those who score well on the IQ test go around, at least subconsciously, with puffed heads because they are demonstrably the smart ones, priding themselves on their enriched vocabularies allowing a plethora of alternatives for expressing an idea.  Of course, if communication is the objective, a simple declarative sentence everyone can understand is most effective.

Not only do we have IQ tests, we have spelling bees (often won by people who correctly spell words they have never used in actual communication).  We pay millions of dollars to athletes who can hit a ball better than the rest of us, or cause someone to be unable to hit the ball at all, or get a ball through a hoop or prevent someone from putting the ball through the hoop.  Then if they use certain drugs we disqualify them because it is cheating, whereas if they use other approved drugs we applaud them.

If being the best is not possible, we change the rules and exclude those in their prime, developing senior leagues for those over fifty.  Even IQ is scaled for age.

I provide this seemingly unrelated rant in part to provide justification for the years between when I fully understood I was a “half-empty” person until I was about fifty.  For those thirty-five or so years, I embraced my “half-emptiness” and wore it as a crown.  The blithering idiots who saw the world through rose-colored glasses were to be pitied for their misapprehension of the situation.  My role in life was to bring “reality” to the discussion.  The world does not necessarily appreciate such candor, which is why we refer to such a person as the “Devil’s Advocate.”

Those unfortunates without sufficient intelligence to understand the value of my “truth” would simply refer to me as obnoxious ― even if they couldn’t spell it.

I was the world’s supreme optometrist, finding the motes in others’ eyes while neglecting the boulders obstructing my own vision.  A joke I told at the time was about a person who was almost perfect, except he had not learned to be humble.  To correct the problem, he went to humbility school and came back proclaiming to all that now he was perfect and had the certificate to prove it.

As I matured, I learned better how to use my skill for finding the holes in plans or arguments in a more socially acceptable way and overlooking flaws of no material consequence.  My brain isn’t slower at noting the flaws; rather I have developed a filter between brain and mouth to divert most negative thoughts to a drywell where they can percolate into the ground.

Despite this self-aggrandized position as the world’s critic, I was not very satisfied with life.  I was earning a good living ― certainly more money than I had expected.  I had always been a saver (never know when bad things may happen so you need a reserve), but I couldn’t help looking at others’ new cars, bigger houses, fancier toys and wondering why not me.  The choice to save was, of course mine, but Mr. Half-empty focused on what I didn’t have, not what I did.  Others took annual vacations to the Caribbean or Europe ― I paid down my mortgage.  I was unwilling to keep up with the Joneses, at the same time I felt as though I was getting the short end of the stick.

Concentrate enough on negatives and they will find you.  I divorced in 1991 and my alimony and child support payments reflected my all-time peak earnings year of 1990.  In early 1993 I was laid-off as the result of an acquisition.  My profession was in the midst of a recession.  I found a new job in Ohio at a 40% pay cut.  Cash flow went from positive to negative.

Instead of concentrating on the positive aspects of the changes ― I had gotten a job in just two months time despite a severe recession in my business ― I focused on the negative of my decreased earnings and a house that was not selling back in New Jersey.  Figuring my house would sell better furnished, I rented a small apartment in Cincinnati and “camped out.”

I left my car parked at work and walked the ten blocks back and forth.  I had a radio for NPR; a table for eating, writing, and my computer; an orange crate from early childhood filled with favorite books; a stocked kitchen; clothes; my bicycle and a pair of well-worn hiking boots.  A fountain outside muted city noises and I slept with windows opened.  I loved it. 

You all may be way ahead of me here, but I still didn’t get it.  I focused on the half-empty glass of my finances:  a cash flow that in good months broke even and turned negative the rest of the time, a house whose value dropped 1.5 times my annual income because of an untimely media scare about the ill effects of nearby power lines.  (Testing at the house showed no unnatural readings, but facts could not compete with the drumbeat of the fourth estate.)  The water drip of monthly alimony and child support checks and the knowledge of college costs in the not too distant future rubbed me raw with worry.

Show and tell:  What am I holding in my left hand? [TWO DIMES -- AFTER they answer move to right hand]  What you have just observed is a PAIR-O-DIME SHIFT.

In the past, I had recorded my assets in the plus column and recorded what I owed -- mortgages, estimated taxes, etc. in the minus column.  The difference was my net worth.  I was lucky.  My parents paid for college, so when I started working in 1972, I only owed them for a used car and its insurance and the security deposit and first month’s rent on my apartment.  By the end of the year I had paid off those loans and had a positive net worth.

At the end of 1994, after I had sold my New Jersey house and bought a Victorian in Cincinnati, I developed a new way of looking at my finances.  This time I included the present value of future alimony and child support payments and estimates of college costs for the kids as part of my liabilities in the minus column.

When I got done, I still had a positive net worth.  My paradigm shift was in realizing I had enough money to take care of all my commitments.  It might be sitting in retirement plans rather than ready cash, but the burden of future obligations was lifted as soon as I realized I had those debts covered.  All I had to financially worry about was taking care of myself.  Eureka!

Did that experience change me from a glass half-empty to glass half-full person?  Not for a moment.

I didn’t extrapolate the concept of a positive balance sheet to the rest of my life; only to my finances -- and only to a limited extent.  I still lived in scarcity mode; however, it no longer felt as a crushing burden.

Fast forward several years.  I announced my entry into stage two of my metamorphosis on January 2, 2000 in a sermon at St. John’s Unitarian Church in Cincinnati.  Our tradition at the time was for three members who had experienced significant changes over the past year to share their experiences as the homily.  I used the opportunity to fess up to my glass half-empty status and declare “…I have been a glass-half-empty person.  I choose to be a glass perpetually filling person… In my second 50 years, or as many as I have, I shall choose abundance. I shall reorient my thinking from scarcity to the fruitfulness of abundance... I have no idea how this will turn out, but I invite you to join me on the journey.”

Here we are five years and five months later.  How did it go?

Well…better, but I still didn’t have it right.  I am still, dognabit, a glass half-empty person.  How could one be perpetually filling, if one didn’t know how much there was to fill?  So, I looked for the missing half in order to understand the whole.   There is good news.  I do not dwell long on the half empty portion of the glass, and I rarely find myself envious.  Maybe being a half-empty person is innate or if it was learned, I haven’t yet unlearned it -- the reason no longer concerns me. 

In 2002, I retired from working as an actuary helping large corporations design and fund their retirement programs.  I decided to write a novel -- not the “Great American Novel” -- a mystery.  And some short stories.  Financially, the IRS might currently call it a hobby rather than a business.  No matter; it is what I want to do and what I am doing.  A writer acquaintance of mine has become VERY successful.  He sold a two-book deal for over $1.5 million and the deal has since expanded to over $2.5 million.  I am happy for him and don’t feel the least bit of jealousy, or wish that it were me.  Not that I would mind a similar deal you understand, just it isn’t important to me.

I want my book published -- of course I do.  But I turned down an agent with whom I wasn’t comfortable and I may never find another.  I wrote a good book -- I’m sure you’d enjoy it if you read it -- and I’m writing its sequel, which is even better.  Perpetually filling the glass as I prognosticated?

Actually, no.  As many of you may have recognized, but I didn’t, the problem with perpetually filling glasses is that I continued to focus on what I was filling.  That is, I concentrated on the empty part.  No longer wasting energy worrying about why my glass was half-empty, but still focusing on filling the emptiness.

Which brings us to last autumn and the Exploring Deep Ecology course I participated in with some of you.  I have taken several of the courses developed by the Northwest Earth Institute.  Each provides thought-provoking information and discussions on the central issue of how we choose to live life.  I highly recommend them.

One late October afternoon I sat in a chair hammock on my porch.  The sun sliced through the hardwoods casting long diagonal shadows; a breeze rattled the tops of the maples foretelling a change in the weather; my dog curled at my feet, running in her dreams.  The thought arrived unbidden:  I had been looking at the half-empty glass the wrong way.

The glass was neither half-empty nor half-full.  The glass was too big!

As with almost everything else I think I know:  others have learned it before me; I have learned it myself and forgotten; or my implementation is less than perfect.  Thich Nhat Hahn says it so much better than I can in his Peace is Every Step, a book I read over ten years ago after my sister gave it to me.  He says:

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live.  What a precious gift!  We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy and happiness to ourselves and others.

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see.  The question is whether or not we are in touch with it.  We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky.  We don’t have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child.  Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy.

Taken the wrong way, sizing down the vessel to fit the contents implies settling for less than could be; accepting what is, even if what is should be unacceptable.  I understand it to mean the something different.  Our seventh principle asks us to “respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

By changing my perspective to concentrating on tending my resources as well as I am able, I can start to put into practice E.F. Schumacher’s answer to the question posed to him about ecology, “What can I actually do?  We can,” he said, “each of us, work to put our own inner house in order.”

Dang.  There it is.  My boulder, not your speck deserves my attention.  And when I do that, when I think carefully, intensely about my inner house, I find it expands.  My scarce resources become abundant even to an excess that must be disposed of.  I try to give it away in a meaningful manner and end up with more.

But I slip all too frequently.  I have a lifetime of experience doing it all wrong.  Good thing I’m young, isn’t it?  But when I get it right, it is so sweet.  Since I’m human I want to share it with you and convince you how right I am.

James Montgomery Jackson
June, 2005