Celebrating what we already have

Most readers would be familiar with the story of the two people who are looking at a drinking glass that has been filled to the half way mark. One optimistically says, “It’s half full” while the other person says in a more pessimistic voice, “It’s half empty”.

Since writing last week’s blog entry about the young girl and her apparent happiness with a tiny jar of face cream, I have been pondering what it means for any of us to remain satisfied with what we have. My fear for the girl was that with the western world’s advertising pressures assailing her from all directions, her requirements to remain happy would be constantly rising. Today the tiny jar of face cream, tomorrow the red sports car or mansion on the Riviera. That day in the train her glass was “half full”; in a year’s time I imagined she would think it was “half empty”.

To live on a sustainable earth, resource depletion and human consumption—along with population growth and climate change—must be addressed. But how?

My simple answer is not so much how we interpret the level of wine (or other goodies) in our glass, but that we take whatever we do have and pour those items into a smaller “glass of expectations”. Then, without doubt, our cup will be full to the brim or even overflow.

It is not that any of us (certainly anyone reading this blog) don’t have enough material possessions to live comfortably.  Our problem is that the more we accumulate, the bigger our “glass of expectations” becomes. And the glass doesn’t get just big enough to accommodate what we have, it always grows to remain twice the size of our material wealth. Even with the optimist exclaiming “It’s half full”, the optimist is only more certain than the pessimist that he/she can eventually fill the glass.  Which never happens.

The two glasses in the photo each hold an equal amount of wine. The one on the left holds its share of wine with much more elegance and is certainly more pleasing to the eye and connotes celebration. It behoves all of us to design a way of living that enhances rather than diminishes the fewer possessions we own. It is possible. And the earth will appreciate us for it.