What is your overall view of the world? When you take a good look at what's happening in the corporate workplace of our country, when you see the off-shoring of our manufacturing jobs, the destruction of our own middle class and the impending collapse of both the health care system and social security, do you think, "Ah, all will be well soon enough." Or, like Chicken Little, do you call out, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
We all have certain filters we apply to our view of the world. I try to span a broad range of both optimism or pessimism when it came to describing the reality of being middle-aged, unemployed or underemployed, with the remnants of what was once a retirement plan. While I can paint a pretty dark picture of this reality, I also know the light that exists when we refuse to be a victim of such circumstances.
The truth is this: I was able to create the light and prosperity I am living now because I foresaw the coming storm, took action and turned it to good.I say this because how you view the world can either prepare you, scare you or leave you without a clue when darkness descends.
You've heard of the clichéd paradigm of the glass being half full or half empty, right? While I see the paradigm as flawed because it doesn't allow for the size of the glass to shrink or expand based on our outlook or how we move in the world, it can still help us determine our way of viewing the world, what we read or how we judge.
I describe it in this way:
- The glass is bone dry.
- (The problem with self-fulfilling pessimism is that it is self-fulfilling. It drives us down to the depths of the darkness and holds us under water. We suffocate ourselves.)
- The glass is always half empty. (Is it, really?)
- The glass is at 50% of its current capacity, neither half full nor half empty.
- (An objective, accurate and balanced view. These people have the ability to see the good in the bad, the bad in the good, and remain balanced.)
- The glass is always half full. (Is it, really?)
- The glass has an infinite supply of water.
- (The problem with delusional optimism, based on denial of the facts, is that it is not self-fulfilling. This is akin to an ostrich with its head in the sand. As the lion charges, the ostrich quickly becomes dinner.
What is your view, based on this half-full, half-empty analogy?
My approach in life is as follows:
- Take a balanced view; acknowledge both my blessings and my emptiness, with gratitude and humility for both.
- Leverage my blessings up to greater good, strive to fill my emptiness constructively, fight the darkness and flip adversity on its back to turn it to good. I call this mental jujitsu.
- Expand the size of the glass by choosing to face head on the hard facts and do something about them; refuse to be a victim.
I have come to believe that mindset is one of the keys to creating light from darkness. So, let's start here and let me ask you again, where do you see yourself within this analogy of the half-full, half-empty glass? It this view serving your ability to prepare yourself and create the prosperity you desire? If not, it may be time to take a different view.
