Don’t you just find it so promising to be hopeful?  Isn’t hope a kind of optimistically good feeling that is bound to improve your life?

We have blogged on optimism in the past.  ( see:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/01/what-is-reality/positive-realistic/the-glass-is-half-full/yucel/ )

Hope can be another kind of optimism. 

We have also blogged on Presence and Gratitude.  ( see:  http://choose.ws/2009/09/09/what-is-reality/presence/presence-and-gratitude/yucel/ )

As we have discussed, happiness and therefore inner peace always occur in the present.

Being positive is a good way of looking at any situation,  as is being grateful.

So what then can it be to look at something with hope?

Isn’t it present or grateful to be hopeful?

Twice no.

First, when we are hoping, we may be giving up responsibility.  When so doing, we may in fact manifest a worse outcome than had we been less than hopeful.  In this mode, hope is used as a kind of crutch.  As with any crutch, we are handicapped when using one properly.  Examples:

We just hope to win the lottery.  Regardless of the handicap of not buying a ticket.   

We just hope the paint job will be a good one.  Regardless of the handicap of not having thought it through, hired professional help, or of giving our best to the project.

We just hope we will find a fabulous partner.  Regardless of being handicapped by refusing to do the work of making ourselves worthy.

Second, and I believe more to the point, hope is generally an expectation for and often an attachment to things being better than they currently are.  Examples of this context are:

We are being ungrateful by being hopeful.    By wanting, which is feeling lack, things to be better through being hopeful, we are in fact being less than grateful for and appreciative of how things are. 

If we were being grateful, we would be pleased with and thankful for how things are as opposed to being hopeful for them being different.

By looking for things to change in the future, we are in fact divorcing ourselves from being present.  

Since happiness can only occur in the present we, by being hopeful things will get better, are not being present.

How can we, while not present, ever be truly peaceful or happy?   I cannot imagine.

While gratitude can create happiness, we may also be creating want by being hopeful.  

Want is a lack.  ( for more on want, see also:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/30/positive-pivots/choosing/how-else-to-fill-the-lack-which-is-want/yucel/ )

As gratitude magnifies our blessings and happiness, hopefulness will magnify any current lacks we acknowledge through hoping.  

We are, when being hopeful, painfully aware of what is missing.  ( for more on missing, see also:  http://choose.ws/2009/05/01/positive-pivots/hello-world/yucel/ )

When things are missing, we feel pained.

Hoping when failing to be present always feels discordant.

Reaping what we sow by planting thoughts of hope, we will eventually harvest hope’s fruits, which must also of necessity be bitter, if we plant lack.

So you might ask, why then do we believe so strongly that hope feels good?  

When one is in great pain, alleviating the pain somewhat feels better.  There are many emotions and thoughts more painful than hope. 

Being negative or pessimistic for instance feels worse than hope.  

If we are feeling very negative about our prospects, going from negative to hopeful will generally feel better.

What we need to take care to keep in mind however is that hope is, at best, a way point; not a safe peaceful haven in its own right then quickly move forward from being hopeful into the present. 

How do we accomplish this?

We move into the present by being present. 

We may be present by being grateful, accepting and allowing of what is, while perhaps looking forward to more of the blessings we already have in abundance and for which are already grateful.

This is how we can feel happier and more peaceful now, while also manifesting the futures of our choice.

Gratefully yours,

Yucel

The glass may be viewed as either half full or half empty, right?  Well, I’ll blog more on change later, however, let it suffice for now to acknowledge or take for the sake of discussion that life itself is in fact a state of change or flux.   Life thus being change, a glass likewise typically can only be half full, or half empty for that matter, for the briefest of periods or in fact only fleetingly so in passing.

A Glass half full or half empty is in fact a mathematical conceptualization requiring a frozen instant of time.   In life, time moves on.  Life is change right?  I wager if you are reading this, time is moving on even as you always live in the now.

Generally, reality for any glass is almost always except fleetingly neither half full nor half empty. 

In any event, choosing to see the glass as half full or half empty is in fact a narrow rather limiting view.  

Rather, the glass is in some other conditions.  Less than half full or  more than half full.  Less than half empty or more than half empty. 

A glass as metaphor for life is usually emptying further or filling further.  Becoming less or more full.  Less or more empty.  Either more is evaporating out or more is being added. 

The fullness of the glass is almost always in flux.

“Empty” is not necessarily bad, by the way.  Seeing “empty” as being always bad is judgement.

What if the gun being aimed at you were full?  Empty can be better.

“Full” likewise is not necessarily good.  What if the tax bill coming your way is full of big line items?

Seeing the condition of the glass with a broad based perspective is a freer limitless and realistic view.

There is always a blessing in any condition.  There is always something, if you look for it, to be positive about.  Something to look forward to and be grateful for.  With this broad based realistic view we have many options to look for and find opportunity and things to be grateful for.  Much more so than any limitingly polarized view.

This brings us around to Positive Realism, you knew I was headed here right?

What is meant by the “Glass is Half Full”kind of attitude is generally a self reference by Optimists, this is a kind of belief in what optimists know ain’t so.  A self limiting narrow view.   

Knowing it ain’t so also miscreates  ( search Positive Realism to see all the current internal links, and/or visit http://choose.ws/2009/09/09/what-is-reality/presence/presence-and-gratitude/yucel/ ).

Optimism is a kind of attachment to outcome, even though “a good outcome.”   Attachment to outcomes may well lead to disappointments.

Optimists often label people who are not optimists as “Pessimists.”  They include in this “Pessimist” bucket people and mental attitudes of both Pessimists (people who are attached to negative outcomes) and Realists (people who maybe be open to a wide range of possible outcomes).

It is essential those of us who are Realists be not easily swayed by this derogatory labeling. 

This labeling is a method where an optimist tries to drag us into their attachment and judgement.  If we go along, we may then join them in an eventual depressive fall as our attachments remain unrealised.

This is not to say that we should not remain positive. 

In any situation, we are free to choose our reaction to the situation.  There are bright sides to any situation.  There is goodness in everything.

This is a key phrase.  So I repeat it again:   There are bright sides to any situation.  What is key here is the plural.  The glass is generally neither half full nor half empty.  The fullness of the glass is only one dimension.  Any situation typically has multiple dimensions.  See it from a different perspective.  View its reality from different angles.   Look for added dimensions. 

Find the situation’s reality and its bright sides.  Look for these and you will find them.

We can see that the glass is less than half full.  Or we can see the glass is almost empty.  We might see the glass is less than full, and that it will probably be empty soon.  This realization of reality may allow us to order another drink, or walk to another location to get a refill. 

We may realise we are not thirsty.  That the glass is irrelevant.  Possibilities are endless. 

Optimism and Pessimism are usually only limited often to only two dimensions on an infinitely dimensional world.

Reality is truly multidimensional.  The reality of the thing is relative to the perspective of the viewer.  Being infinite perspectives, there are infinite realities and thus reality is infinite.

Being infinite, there are infinite positive outcomes possible.  

If you attach yourself to any particular outcome, you will become an optimist or a pessimist.  

Optimists and pessimists have attachments to fixed views that are only shattered by emerging realities.   Then after they pick themselves up, they latch onto another set of fixed views.  The cycle completes and repeats.

Realists understanding that life is change avoid attachment.   How can one realistically be attached to that which we know is constantly changing? 

By being both realistic and positive, we can have full enriched happy lives, accepting and allowing what is, while always looking for the opportunities which surely exist as long as we are unblinded by attachment to any outcomes, including optimistic or pessimistic outcomes.

Come what may by way of change, we can always choose to be positive and realistic.

Positively yours,

Yucel