You know that analogy of pessimism/optimism where some people see the glass as half empty and some people see it as half full?  Well, my favourite answer to that is “the glass has room for a shot of tequila”. 🙂

On Saturday I had a pleasure of hosting a whole bunch of friends at my place for a birthday party. As I looked around the room, I realized that all of us had some full glass and some empty glass. Figuratively as well as literally.

We all had reasons that some things sucked in our lives right now. Some people had partners that couldn’t be there. Others were feeling the loneliness of having no partner. Some people are having health issues or have family with health issues. Some are struggling financially and looking for work. Some are wrestling with tough decisions about life changes or embarking on scary new paths.

But, you’d never know it from the love and laughter in the room. We had all gathered there to celebrate with our friends.  And share. The sucky stuff but all the good stuff. Planning for a wedding, new jobs, projects in our lives that we are passionate about, creating warm and safe homes, raising our children.

And, whether our glasses are half empty, or half full, I think that attitude is the shot of tequila that we can all add. The magical spirit that transforms. Because we can acknowledge and feel the challenges that we have – and wow are some of them hard –  but we need also to celebrate our blessings. To not just feel our gratitude but to practice it everyday, especially when things are hard. I am grateful for the love of my friends for helping me remember that.

Of course, the other answer to the glass question is the engineering response – that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. But, since I never want to make my life smaller, I’ll just stick with the shot of tequila, thanks!