If My Glass is Half Empty.....

Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice

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....but then I pour my drink into a glass half the size, am I then better off?

Seems like a silly question, right?

What does the size of the glass have to do with how much drink we have?

What does the level of success of the people around us have to do with how succesful we consider ourselves to be?

Quite a lot it seems

Can we change this? Should we?
 
Not silly [MENTION=472]Poetic Justice[/MENTION], actually I find it intriguing.

I guess it depends on the symbolism of the glass itself; what does it represent?

Perhaps if stands for expectations, then we may well be better off. Then we would
be living life to our fullest capacity. Maybe not doing as much as someone with a
larger glass, but doing the best that we can.
 
Poetic Justice said:
....but then I pour my drink into a glass half the size, am I then better off?

Seems like a silly question, right?

What does the size of the glass have to do with how much drink we have?

What does the level of success of the people around us have to do with how succesful we consider ourselves to be?

Quite a lot it seems

Can we change this? Should we?
Click to expand...

Depends on how thirsty you are. Who says the problem is the glass anyway? I keep looking for more liquid myself.
 
The glass = whats possible. Or to be more accurate, what we perceive as being possible

This is directly related to how content we are with most things in life.

What we have versus what we think we may be able to have

With todays focus on celebrity BS and music videos with people talking about their cadillacs and how much bling they have etc etc how are we supposed to be happy with what we've got?

Well, the simple answer is we're not. They (whoever They are) want us to not be happy with what we've got so we'll get loans and spend our money on crap we don't need and buy expensive clothes and cars

We don't need that shit

Most of us live like kings compared to a few hundred years ago yet most of us consider ourselves to be struggling to get by

Why?

Because we want more. we don't want enough to be happy. We want more than the average. We want the things that we're told succesful people have

We want a full glass of water

It doesn't matter how big the glass is. We want it to be full

Sadly, enough people beleive this to be the measure of success that it effectively makes it true
 
When I saw this, I thought, what if the glass is leaking? What if it was full, but there's a crack, and slowly, drip by drip, the water is leaking out without anyone realizing. Not sure what is really means or how it fits in with the question, but maybe one way to look at it is ask, what if you thought it was full, but it wasn't? Or what if you thought it was half full but it's really less than you thought you had, wouldn't that change your perspective to know that it was less than you thought or more? If you saw it as full even if it was half empty, then you're probably more satisfied than most. If you saw it as less even if there is more in the glass than you believed, then aren't you going to be less satisfied although it was pretty full?
 
The assumption is that everybody's definition of what the glass contains is materialistic goods. The liquid is the important part--not the glass. What is your liquid? And is it truely quenching your thirst!
 
Poetic Justice said:
The glass = whats possible. Or to be more accurate, what we perceive as being possible

This is directly related to how content we are with most things in life.
..snip..
We want a full glass of water

It doesn't matter how big the glass is. We want it to be full.
Click to expand...

I think some people are indeed attracted by the shiny shiny that MegaCorp wish to sell us. I remember reading about a study on young children who were all given toys; half a really exciting toy, the others a dull one. They were offered the ability to swap to the other toy, but they wouldn't be able to have a cookie (or something similar) when everyone else had one. Most swapped from the dull toy to the exciting toy and presumably cried at break time when the cookie didn't arrive.

It's in human nature I suppose for people to want what others have. I for one would like to think I didn't want the latest gadget unless I saw a problem I have solved by it. However, I do love gadgets. I don't and have never owned an iPhone, though.

I'm intrigued by your question though, I see your logic in your post later. I think a small proportion, who happen to be the loud proportion, are those we see with status symbols way in advance of their means. The majority of people do just want to be happy and live fulfilling lives. Others, the extroverts I guess, do wish to show off their success.

There's a game I was once introduced to at a place I worked. It was a summer job managing a car park (parking lot) where we tried to assess which car type the people would drive away in. It was sometimes surprising, especially for females who I put down to driving the husband's choice of car. However the people driving the BMWs or Mercedes were easy to spot a mile away.
 
Sonyab said:
The assumption is that everybody's definition of what the glass contains is materialistic goods. The liquid is the important part--not the glass. What is your liquid? And is it truely quenching your thirst!
Click to expand...


yeah, we assume the liquid is the same for everyone, when it isn't. What's a refreshing drink to one person is a sour to another, and vice versa. And who wouldn't take a half glass of sweet over a full glass of sour anyday, especially if those were the only two choices?
 
Res said:
When I saw this, I thought, what if the glass is leaking? What if it was full, but there's a crack, and slowly, drip by drip, the water is leaking out without anyone realizing. Not sure what is really means or how it fits in with the question, but what if you thought i was full, not realizing it isn't. Or what if you thought it was half full but it's really less than you thought you had, wouldn't that change your perspective to know that it was less than you thought or more?
Click to expand...

Sure. You'd be unhappy that you lost some of your drink.

I used to go clubbing quite a lot. One night I had in my pocket three..... erm..... let's call them sweeties. I looked down and saw a sweeitie on the floor so I picked it up. I though YES! now I have four sweeties. I then found another one, and another one. I though WOW! now I have six sweeties! I put my hand in my pocket for my original three and couldn't find them. I panicked and thought oh god I've lost them. I was gutted. despite having no less than I'd started with

Yes, that's right. The three that I found were indeed the same three that I'd lost.

Duh
 
I don't think people necessarily "want" materialistic things. But do I agree with you on some level. People have the need to grow. It's not greed, it's growing. Some just go the route to make a lot of money. I don't see anything wrong with making a lot of money. I live in the united states and it's a free market. People also have the need to feel significant. Money is power. If you have a lot of money it equates to significance and value.

For me personally, I will always have the need to grow, whether it be materialistically, mentally, physically............................. I consider it a good thing, not a bad one.

Also, celebs aren't always "happy" with what they have either imo. Because even they still have the need to grow, and they sometimes stop doing it once they've "made it", we've seen it lead to drug abuse, etc. The reason for this imo is because they are missing out one or more human needs.
 
Poetic Justice said:
Sure. You'd be unhappy that you lost some of your drink.

I used to go clubbing quite a lot. One night I had in my pocket three..... erm..... let's call them sweeties. I looked down and saw a sweeitie on the floor so I picked it up. I though YES! now I have four sweeties. I then found another one, and another one. I though WOW! now I have six sweeties! I put my hand in my pocket for my original three and couldn't find them. I panicked and thought oh god I've lost them. I was gutted. despite having no less than I'd started with

Yes, that's right. The three that I found were indeed the same three that I'd lost.

Duh
Click to expand...

@Poetic Justice

yeah, but i guess my point is not that it would suck if you realized you lost some of it. My point would be if you didn't know you had less than you did, would it matter if you were satisfied with what you had? In other words, if you had less without knowing that you had less, if you're happy with it, would it matter to you that you had less? If you had more but thought you had very little, would you be more dissatisfied than the person who had less but thought they had more?
 
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Res said:
@Poetic Justice

yeah, but i guess my point is not that it would suck if you realized you lost some of it. My point would be if you didn't know you had less than you did, would it matter if you were satisfied with what you had?
Click to expand...

I think that so long as you didn't lose a huge amount of whatever it is we're talking about you wouldn't be bothered. You would be happy with what you had because you'd think you'd go the full amount.

There was an experiement done a few years ago where they got some people to eat soup out of bowls.

One of the bowls automatically filled itself from the bottom so it never ran out.

The people were told to eat until they were full.

The people whose bowls didn't refill typically said they were full after finishing the bowl

The people whose bowls refilled ate considerably more before saying they were full. They had no reference for how much they'd eaten. No external cues

Bare in mind they were told they had to eat until they were FULL. not just eat what they wanted to. The ones with external cues i.e. an empty bowl didn't eat anywhere near as much as those without an external cue
 
Sonyab said:
The assumption is that everybody's definition of what the glass contains is materialistic goods. The liquid is the important part--not the glass. What is your liquid? And is it truely quenching your thirst!
Click to expand...


Actually when I first posted I wasn't thinking in terms of the material. The drink seemed to be symbolizing what fulfills us; what quenches our thirst. My idea of said thirst was more emotional/spiritual, not tangible. That is why I questioned the symbolism of the glass, which is merely the container... but directly affects our interpretation of how we relate to the drink inside it.
 
Okay. Specifically, I was talking to that fist shaking PJ's question regarding if it made a difference in the size of the glass, not so much your post. :)
 
I suppose all analogies fall apart after too much scrutiny.
 
corndogman said:
I suppose all analogies fall apart after too much scrutiny.
Click to expand...

LOL. Isn't it an analogy because it is a complex idea that is being condensed into a more easily understood simplistic idea? Isn't PJ just deconstructing the analogy to look at the more complex issue?
 
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When we are younger, the glass is small, easy to fill.

As we grow older, our glass gets bigger, harder to fill.


We have to put in more thinking, more insight, more optimism to get fulfillment. The "simple" things don't cut it anymore for us. The old ones that think like a child are the happiest.
 
Poetic Justice said:
....but then I pour my drink into a glass half the size, am I then better off?

Seems like a silly question, right?

What does the size of the glass have to do with how much drink we have?
Click to expand...

The actual amount of drink we have or our mental model of how much drink we have?
As we cannot directly `know' how much drink is OUT THERE, in `the territory' we are left with our `map'/mental_model/perception of the `the territory', The Real World, Objective Reality, the Cosmos, etc.

The Gestalt Psychologist dealt with such issues as Figure-Ground Perception
Piaget used to pour liquids from short, stout glasses into tall skinny glasses both holding the same volume before the eyes of amazed school children.
Perception looms large in our mental map-making of `The Territory'

Poetic Justice said:
What does the level of success of the people around us have to do with how successful we consider ourselves to be?

Quite a lot it seems

Can we change this? Should we?
Click to expand...

We can change our maps and mental models.
Reframing helps.

Should we?
Should we re-frame shouldism into couldism or is-ism? ;-)
 
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