Half Full? Half Empty?

Summer in Cumberland
James Durden
1925

I love this wonderful painting. It is one of those paintings I can gaze into for hours. I imagine myself in the room, I can feel the summer breeze blowing through the open window, and I can hear the conversation as the three people have a lazy afternoon chat while they enjoy their tea. The fellow outside the window is just passing by, and he stops to join in the conversation with the two women, perhaps his wife and a friend who is visiting her. The friend is feeding a tiny morsel of teacake to the cat. Everyone is relaxed and happy, and for that microcosm of time, everything is right in their world.

Life is made up of microcosms like that, isn't it? How many of us stop to enjoy them? We always seem to look at the big picture, rather than at the tiny moments of time that make up the big picture.

I learned a long time ago that, whether we look at life as a half empty cup or a half full cup, it is a choice we can all make. We can consciously choose how we wish to view our lives and our blessings, whether large or small.

I spent a great deal of time in my life dodging bullets. Anxiety became a permanent part of my psyche. I can still tend to get that way when negative things happen in my life. None of us has smooth sailing every day. We often have work-related difficulties, or financial, or health-related, or inter-personal, or whatever... But when I look back at some of the things in my life that caused me stress, I feel very sad for the person I was then. It's hard to see any joy in life when we're in the eye of the hurricane. But I think if we learn to grab the small moments, savour them, enjoy them, burn them into our brains so we can remember them, we can learn to see the cup as half-full rather than half-empty.

Today is a beautiful summer day in Vancouver, very much like in the painting above. There is a slight sea breeze, the air is warm and soft. A friend has invited me over to share some of her home made coffee cake. We will sit and chat, and laugh, and perhaps we will create another nice memory. Today I think, I hope, my cup is half full.