If I had to pick between the two, I could easily say that I am more of a glass half full kind of guy than half empty.  I would rather look on the bright side of life, than looking around every corner for what is going to go wrong.  But you know what, my glass is under constant siege from the world around me.  The world is what makes me slip over into the dark side, the half empty side, sometimes.  It is what makes me a skeptic in some situations.  I’ll give you an example of this strange (or maybe not so strange) Jekyll and Hyde dual personality.  When I get that call about the great vacation deal for $99, I get excited thinking “This is awesome, a great vacation spot for only $99!”  Then the skeptic decides to interject, “Yeah, but what do they want?  Is this someone calling from their basement trying to rip me off?  Will I ever really see this so called vacation spot?”  I’d say that this is probably the norm for most people.  We want to believe, but there are too many news stories about people being bilked out of their money.  For goodness sakes, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme had enough zeroes in it to make me more than a little bit cynical.  Money is the obvious example, but there are other things that contribute to the emptying of our glass – unfulfilled promises, unrequited love, even bad timing and bad luck.  Is that what we have become in life, skeptical optimistics? 

We are shaped every day by our experiences and the way that people treat us.  Keep running into the dishonest and conniving people and it won’t take long before the sun isn’t shining so bright and the grass isn’t so green.  On the flip side, experience encouragement, success, compassion and generosity, and I bet there is a very different picture.  It would be a special person who could totally separate a personal approach from a professional approach.  You might be able to sway slightly one way or the other, but in general you are going to look at things pretty much the same.  How often have you had personal and professional experiences affect the other part of your life?  It is a fine line to walk between personal and professional these days.  Work-life balance right?  Remember that you will need to manage the effect of one on the other when they blend together.

I suspect that the majority of people would most likely say that 2009 was a glass half empty year.  We are always going to scuffle with negative factors, but it is up to you as to how you want to let them affect you.  Here is my challenge to you (and me) moving forward.  Start by looking at the positives that surround you, be they personal, professional, big or small.  Discover the compassion and generosity happening to you or around you.  Celebrate your successes in life.  Make your glass half full.  Be the type of person that fills up the glasses of those around you.

Here is the hard part though.  Don’t stop at half full.  Fill it up all the way (with whatever makes you happy) and be vigilant of those things that want to empty your glass.

See you here this time next year and we’ll toast our success with a full glass.