glass half full

“Things could be worse and things could be so much better.” This is a line from a Joshua Ferris book “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour.” I just finished reading it and am a bit baffled by it. I love, love, loved “The Unnamed.” This book was just not the same. Regardless of the verdict on his recent book, I loved this idea. How often do we go about our lives and think: “Oh what a crappy day, or week, or month, or year.” We wallow in the situation we are in, agonize over how we could be treated differently, or think that life is incredibly unfair. Yet, maybe things are going to get worse, or maybe they will be so much better.

I have blogged about an idea my sister shared with me when I was in elementary or middle school. She said: “Things can only get better.” They did eventually get better. I do not remember how long it took, or if there was a specific moment when things got better — but they did. Sometimes I think our personal hell eventually becomes foggy or gets smaller in our minds. Sort of when you drive away from something it gets smaller and smaller or further and further away. Either life shifts and the good outweighs the bad, or our focus on the good or the bad changes. Just as the line from the book says, we could always be worse off, and life can always be better than it is right now.

There are so many ways to look at it:

_You could say I did not get what I wanted, my life sucks.

_You can say I did not get what I wanted, and I know there is something even better out there for me.

_You could say I did not get what I wanted, but my life could be worse. I could have less than I have now. I know things could be better than they are right now, but I am just grateful for what I have right now.

Regardless of how you approach your situation, it is HOW we look at it and HOW we react to what is in front of us. Do we look at life with a glass half full or a glass half empty? When we are grateful for what we have in front of us right now, we are given the space to receive more. Are you filling your glass up, or running on low? Just remember, things could be worse.

Does everything have a silver lining? If you are a glass half full kind of person you might think that there is a silver lining in everything. Maybe it is all in how you approach a situation. You could have a frustrating experience with a friend or family member and choose to look at it for all the things that might be negative or wrong, or you can choose to look at it as an opportunity.

While we cannot change another person, and often we cannot change a situation, we can change how we look at the situation. Is it a moment to stand up for what you believe in? Is it now the time to say what you are really thinking? Or is it a time to stay quiet and let the other individual(s) work it out on their own? Maybe you are the type of person to always fix things for others, and maybe you have to take a break from that and let someone learn in their own way.

I think we can be in strange situations many times in our lives. Maybe we are stuck in a job we hate, or have struggled to tell a friend that we no longer want them in our life. Whatever the situation, the silver lining is often what we learn, and what we do not know. For example, you could hate your job, and struggle to understand why you keep interviewing but continue to not get the job. If that is your situation and you are reading this right now, you might say, “Tami you are crazy, there is no silver lining.” The silver lining is what you learn: more patience, persistence, perseverance, and maybe even the people skills to put yourself out there, to dig deep and fight for where you want to be. Not everything we do in life is easy.

Is it time to find the silver lining?