From The Editor: Glass Half Full?

Are you a glass half full or glass half empty person? Personally, I suffer from boundless optimism—probably to the point of being irritating at times—just ask my kids. In fact, those pessimists in my life confound me. Why are they so caught up in the negative? Why are they so insistent on dragging me down?

I recently had a conversation with my daughter that went something like this:

Her: I can’t do it. I am going to fail and make a fool of myself. I might as well not even try.

Me: Of course, you can do it! I know that some things don’t happen the way you want, but on the bright side, you grow as a person each time you try something new. Just think positive! It will all be fine.

She just rolled her eyes and closed her bedroom door.

While I am always looking past the current storm cloud to the rainbow about to break out, I have realized that my outlook on life can sometimes come back to bite me. After all, someone needs to be paying attention to the storm clouds and making sure the windows are shut and the kids are in the basement if the sirens are going off.This poem seems to sum it up:

I am an optimist.

I see the glass as half full, the fire damage as a chance to start again and the flood waters as a time to practice kayaking.

I see the donut hole and the donut(and I eat them both) and I see the sun peeking out from behind the clouds even when a cumulonimbus is raining on the parade.

I am a pessimist.

I see the glass as half empty, the fire damage as the hell which consumed my life and the flood waters as a time to pack up and move while my stuff is still dry.

I see the hole in the donut and I see the cracking lightning that might catch my house on fire and kill me while the cumulonimbus is raining on my parade.

I am a realist.

I see the glass with water in it, and as long as it's water who cares if it's half full or empty, the fire damage as inevitable (it happens to everybody at least once) and the flood waters as part of the cycle of life.

I see the donut and wonder if someone sneezed on it and I see the rain coming down and worry about everything that could realistically go wrong.

—Author Unknown

Thank God for the pessimists who keep the optimists grounded in reality. And bless the optimists who give those pessimists a reason to get out of bed every day. Put us together and we become the realist ready to tackle anything.

Lisa Loewen
Editor-in-Chief

TK