Half Empty/Full

There is a common question that will most of the time be asked when you read any self-help books or attend any self-help seminar and that is, imagine a glass of water with water fill to half its capacity, do you see the glass half empty or half full. And from the answer that you give, one is able to tell if you are a positive person or a negative person.

Let me give my answer to the question. The glass is always full. So I neither choose half empty or half full. Haha, think about it for a while before you read on, why I said that the glass is always full.

Have you given some thought? Ok here goes, the glass in a natural environment will always be full no matter how much water is inside. Because the glass can be fill with air (air here does not mean water ah. :P) . This is the reason why the glass is always full. Everytime we are asked the question of whether the glass is half empty or half full, the person who ask the question has direct you to make some assumption and that is you see it from the perspective of water in the glass. How he direct you? Very simple, by offering you a multiple choice question. Half empty or half full, two options only. As such you will be thinking from the perspective of water readily without question asked. And if you think properly, the asker just ask "Is the glass half full or half empty?" Many a times there is no mentioned of water in the question at all. Think about it.

I am sure after reading till this paragraph, you have now more interpretations of the glass with water filled to half its capacity. For example, the glass is full of oxygen molecules and pairs of oxygen atom and hydrogen atoms. The glass is full of molecules. The glass is full of neutrons, protons and electrons. How come suddenly, you have a lot of interpretation of the same thing? This is because I have broken the assumption for you. The assumption that you need to look at the perspective of water.

In life, there are many options available to us. Many a times we are limited by the perspective of things that we have, as seen from the glass example. And because of our limited perspective of things, we dismiss or overlook better solutions to our problem. So when we look at a problem, look at the problem from many perspective, looking at it from many perspective can allow us to see the problem as it is, not worse or better than what it is, understand which perspective is the best for solving this problem and then choose the appropriate solution to solve it.

How to see from many perspectives? Well perhaps the first step is to find out what are the assumptions you have made. Check that these assumptions can they be broken or not. And once the assumption is broken, you can view a problem from many more angles, just like the glass example again.

Cheers!