A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full†question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?â€
Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.
She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.†She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.â€
It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses. As early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night. Remember to put the glass down!
I don’t know who gets credit for this but it’s genius – I’ve said similar stuff here a lot but this story captures it nicely. Many of us here tend to carry the glass (stress/worry) for days, weeks and years without ever putting it down and it drives us mad and saps our hopes and dreams – we become obsessed with them – but there is only so much time that is usefully spent on these things that is relevant to helping to solve the problem.
That’s not to say the stress and worries are not real or to in any way marginalize them – but more often than not we get laser focused on a few things and everything else falls away – we don’t put the glass down … too many people will stress and worry about a relationship or employment of any number of things while cloistering themselves up in their bedroom and obsessing late until the wee hours of the night – a time when there is nothing useful that will come of worrying and stressing regarding these things – i don’t know too many people that found a job at 3am in their bedroom – and they sure didn’t find the love of their life without leaving the house
Go ahead – put the glass down for a little while – i promise, it won’t hurt
scale dawg
15 comments
I think it’s just how some people think at a certain point. They can’t put it down perhaps.
Personally, I don’t think much about my sadness and issues until at night time when I have to sleep. Then it’s like the whole day of ignoring my feelings catches up with me.
I think I can’t put the glass down and I’ve been trying to get a handle on that. Because I can’t… I write here and try to make sense of what’s left to live for.
It hasn’t been going well. But again, freedom of speech and thought or whatever.
Dawg you always seem to have something intelligent to say. In all the replies and posts I’ve seen u seem to be the person who offers a fair perspective. I put the “glass” down sometimes without knowing it and it feels great, however it doesn’t happen that often. Yes i do think about my problems and worry about them more than I try to solve them, I obsess about it, i carry it around, It almost feels like a duty to carry it around. When you have a problem it is hard to focus on anything else and we lose perspective. We think we’ll start to enjoy life when and only when we’ve solved our problems..
I love ya, Dawg. Rock on.
Thank xylem – i’m older than most people around this site so i’ve lived through a lot – learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t … what’s a good use of time and resources and what is not. I’ve been bullied and been the bully (and that’s a horrible place to be – they’re both horrible places to be, but to be the bully adds a level of cowardly dishonor which is a repugnant reality to face)
Many people here think i just spout this shit to try and talk them out of whatever – honestly it doesn’t effect me either way what they choose to do with their lives (cold, i know) … but although i didn’t do something with my life meaningful like find the cure for cancer or help people out of poverty or create the next great widget – i learned a lot through first hand experience … much of it very painful and heart wrenching.
SO while i have my own demons and reasons for being here, i try to offer my insights to what works and what doesn’t so people who REALLY want to listen and learn a better way and perspective can avoid the same pain and pitfalls i’ve made. Some will listen, learn and implement the things i say – others will laugh and scorn me – but that’s them – it doesn’t effect me if they like me or not (although I do prefer they like me 😉 )
We’ll start to enjoy life when we appreciate the life that is right in front of us – every house has a table … and at any time we can put that glass on the table – it doesn’t go away, it’s still there, but we do NOT have to keep carrying the glass while there is a perfectly good table to set the glass on … when we set the glass down, our hands become free to do other things … we can always go back and pick up the glass when the time is relevant and it’s useful to address the glass (the item of stress/worry) but we don’t have to hold it 24/7 and let it get in the way of a dinner with friends or even just immersing ourselves in our favorite TV show for an hour
Every horrible worry and stress in my life stops and is set aside when my favorite football or hockey team is on t\TV – for that 2-4 hours – NOTHING else matters – and even if they lose – i live and thoroughly enjoy that sporting event … afterwards i can go pick up any one of the many glasses i’ve set on my table … there’s too many for me to carry them all at the same time … and i’m not a good juggler.
@bbbaron – what’s left to live for? – never mind ideology, god and country we all spend too much time trying to secure our future and forget to live for the moment … in battle men don’t fight the war for their god and country – they fight for the survival of themselves and the guy next to them – and the next moment … to get just to the next hill, the next trench … the next few steps … get there and you have success … until you get there, you cannot go on you can say you want to go 1000 miles … but as the old geezer saying goes, you’ll not get there without that first step.
There’s a reason why “One day at a time” is often repeated saying – because it’s so so true. stop thinking “it’s just a saying” (i used to do this) and actually analyse the sayings and look at what those saying actually say and mean
“The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step” – it’s true for EVERYTHING we do … you wan’t a relationship? … it doesn’t happen without taking a shower and leaving the house first … there ARE no shortcuts, there is no easy way – some ways are easier than others but it all requires “step one”
I’m not “intelligent” – i’m battle tested and experienced – i don’t have all the answers – but the ones i have were earned in blood.
Perspective is a choice – always has been – you cannot get around it – you have to choose – positive or negative – but always a choice … but yes, choices have consequences and they snowball exponentially one way or the other.
you’re dying when you think you know everything
student dawg
Dawg,
I can appreciate your perspective but honestly, one post about a bad day is not the total picture. It’s not about wanting a relationship, a job, etc… it’s about wanting something else entirely… it’s a feeling I desire… I don’t feel I can achieve it with what I have gone through and what I go through. And, like you, after many years of battling many battles, I am tired and I can’t see the sense in anything.
I work very hard and have little reward for it. I’m not someone who sits around crying “oh woe is me” and isn’t trying to repair my life.
Maybe those answers work for you but as I said, some thirty years later, the last five or so in particular, I feel as though I am pushing the same stupid boulder over the same stupid hill.
Why not let it crush me?
It’s not about one step when you’ve walked a million miles already.
@ bbbaron According to the gods, there was no worse punishment than futile labour which is why they condemned Sisyphus to pushing the same boulder up the same hill for all eternity. He could have just sat on his ass twiddling his thumbs. Instead he fulfilled his obligation and pushed the boulder. This has led some philosophers to conclude that he must have found it gratifying even though it was all for nothing.
Sublimity,
what do you want me to take from your comment?
It seems a bit like an insult.
@ bbbaron It’s not really about what I want. There are always at least two sides to every coin. I do not favour one over the other. I think that both should be visible.
Some people can develop the mental strength and desire to keep going when there is no hope. Despite what the people on here always say, being devoid of hope is not always fatal.
When I said that, I meant it more literally as in, when someone responds to someone post, there is a desired message that wants to be relayed, no? When I read your comment, I couldn’t understand what was the helpful take away, or if that was in fact your intention. I wanted to be sure I understood.
It seems as if you are being snarky. To tell a stranger that I must get gratitude out of my pointless endeavors was the initial take away. Now your second comment seems to make less sense and a bit judgmental and hostile. You seem to be saying I lack mental strength because I lost my hope?
Do you really feel it appropriate or fair to make such inferences?
If you find what I am saying so annoying that the best you can muster is some cynical, apathetic response that seems to ooze some sort of (unmerited) annoyance or disdain, maybe you should keep your comments to yourself.
I’m just one person on a site filled with hundreds of people who face similar struggles. We are all on different points of a continuum. I’m explaining my point of view and trying to have some sort of meaningful dialogue.
What are you trying to do?
Not at all. Your boulder reference reminded me of Sisyphus that’s all. You read too much into my comment, you see what you must want to see.
I didn’t say that you must take gratitude did I. I said that people can find some challenges in life gratifying.
Well, whatever.
I hope you manage to find the answers to lifes age old questions.
All the best!
@bbbaron – I’m not going to pretend that anything i say is the cure all for anyone’s anything – I know nothing about you other than what you’ve posted here (at least as i recall at the moment) other than you’re 30+ years old and take things way too personal when they really weren’t targeted at you to begin with, but I assure you it’s no one’s intent to insult your sensibilities or demean your experiences, nor is anyone trying to tell you what you should or should not think and do … I’m merely offering a tool … a perspective … a choice … to the folks here who may not have viewed something in this light.
You say: ” … one post about a bad day is not the total picture. It’s not about wanting a relationship, a job, etc… it’s about wanting something else entirely… it’s a feeling I desire… I don’t feel I can achieve it with what I have gone through and what I go through”
I don’t know what “post” you are referring – but i would certainly agree that any one post is but a fragment of a snapshot of anyone’s total picture.
And in regards to relationship/jobs et al. … just examples of where to apply the lesson should you so choose … it could be applied to any and everything … whatever it is you seek you’ll not get it if you don’t take the first step in that direction … and based on your comments, your difficulties come from trying to carry your past and all it’s excess baggage (the proverbial “glass”) with you – but you’ve already been carrying it for your, thus far, million mile trek – this would indeed make the “glass” (or several “glasses” I’ll wager) extremely heavy and burdensome.
You have the choice to put any one or all of them down before the next step
Yeah – i’m sick and tired thus far along too – and i have my reasons for being here just as you … but i don’t choose to be sad/upset/angry about it. I haven’t given up either but while i’m working to fix things i don’t choose to carry the difficulties of the past forward with me. In my destitution i can still choose to be positive and forward looking without dragging the failed marriages, estranged kids, foreclosures, betrayals etc. etc. with me
to do that would be indeed to let the boulder crush me … I say fuck the boulder on this side of the hill … i’ll look for one on the other side of the hill and spare myself the toil of forcing the one on this side to go where i cannot make it go.
but it’s always a choice…for us both
all the best
forgiveness dawg
@ bbbaron
As a punishment Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to the endless task of pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down and to have to start again. The task was intended to defeat Sisyphus. It is difficult to imagine that Sisyphus approached the task with gratitude but perhaps defiance and in defiance happiness. By refusing to despair he was effectively giving the finger to the gods and in doing so might have found happiness.
The Buddhist philosophy states outright that to live is to suffer.
Christian and Islamic philosophy is more subtle, but the same, it is not this life but the next that we must aim for.
Basically most people experience life as a task to be endured and long for a sense of meaning and with meaning happiness.
For those of us who have found ourselves conscious at the foot of the hill with our rock where do we turn.
Albert Camus suggests we have arrived at the absurd are confronted with three options
1 – Suicide – we must face the question of Suicide – as can be attested by many on this site the genuine desire for death and suicide lies outside their abilities to go through with it. As if we are fated. Desire is not enough and so we must come to terms with the reality that this is not an option or become bitter men and woman.
2 – Religion – Find Peace with our task though surrender and in the leap of surrender meaning, and meaning happiness.
3 – Revolt – Reflecting back to life the absurdity of life, refusing the lure of hope and meaning. In existential revolt there is no appeal to meaning and hope.
The absurd does not appeal to hope or meaning to avoid suffering /life, without appeal the absurd lives life in every moment.
The reality may be that it is the search for meaning and our concepts of hope that creates our suffering.
Meaning and hope are not requirements of happiness!!! If such is true Losing Hope may be the first step to happiness!!!
Camus’s intent behind revolt may not be my concept of Existential Revolt but I have found peace in my revolt to the appeal to meaning and hope. In my revolt each moment can be what it is, as it is. No need for the judgment of good or bad, every moment contains “both sides of the coin†and there is no need to identify with either, we are not the coin.
Absurdist Left22
@Dawg Here is another take on the Glass half full/half empty question you may like
How Full Is Your Glass? By Tom Morris
http://www.morrisinstitute.com/index.php?s=wisdom&c=weekly_full
One night at dinner time, when he was thirteen years old, my son Matt walked into the room, put his plate down on the table, and said “Dad, I’ve figured out that glass question.” ….
You know the scenario: A water glass contains liquid up to its midpoint. The question is then asked whether the glass is half empty or half full. We’re told that a pessimist will say it’s half empty, while an optimist will say it’s half full. The situation is supposed to be a sort of Rorschach Test for inner attitude. It’s assumed that there is no objectively right answer. What you say will be determined by what you are, not by what the glass is.
Well, Matt wasn’t about to buy that. He had heard the question somewhere, and apparently it had been bothering him. He now had an answer. “So, what’s the answer?”, I asked with sincere curiosity. And he said something which proved again that you can be a philosopher at almost any age.
Matt thought for a second and replied, “It all depends. If you were filling the glass just before you got to that point, it’s half full. If you were drinking from it or pouring it out just before, then it’s half empty.”
Aha! “It all depends,” people have always said, but they’ve thought it depends on the attitude of the person looking at the glass. Matt couldn’t accept that as the final answer. It does all depend, but it depends on what real process had been going on to bring the glass to its present state. What something is sometimes depends on where it came from, on how it got to be as it is, and maybe even on where it’s in the process of going. That’s a pretty profound insight.”
There is a lesson here for us all. How’s your life these days? Is it pretty good, or is it pretty bad? Is it half full, or half empty? It all depends. Have you been emptying it out, dissipating your energies, squandering your deepest self, and losing everything of real value, or have you been filling it up in the best possible way, adding things of true worth to your daily experience? Have you been depleting or enriching yourself? What process is going on in your life right now?
These questions bring us close to some others. What does it take to live a genuinely good and happy life? What exactly is involved in living a life full of all the right things? How can we fill our days with what we most truly need? And how can we avoid emptying ourselves out in ways that leave us unhappy, unfulfilled, and unable to do the good that we really long to accomplish?
I believe that, as a society, we are facing a crisis. I like to call it “the good life crisis.” It’s a little like the famous mid-life crisis we’ve heard so much about for decades. But it isn’t really about red convertibles and the beach. It’s not fundamentally a psychological crisis at all. It’s a deeper philosophical problem that we didn’t see coming, but that touches everything we think and do.
Everywhere I go, I see people in their forties and fifties experiencing the good life crisis. Twentysomethings are troubled by it. Teenagers, people in their thirties, and even many individuals facing retirement are feeling its effects, although, across the board, most people seem not to understand exactly what the problem is. Mistaking the symptoms for the disease, they often look for a cure in all the wrong places.
The problem is that, in our opportunity rich and pressure packed world, without a well thought through personal philosophy to steer by, without real wisdom to rely on, people are emptying their lives of what really counts and filling them with all sorts of clutter instead. They are accepting counterfeits for all the real values they need. And, far too often, they don’t know what’s causing the trouble that they can’t help but feel.
The great seventeenth century scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal believed that we all too often empty our lives of the most important things until they’re hollow, and then clutter them up with junk. During the opening weeks and months of this new year, do something about the good life crisis as it may be felt in your own life, in your own heart, and in the lives and hearts of the people closest to you. Give yourself and them time for the little things that really matter. And begin to fill all your glasses up in the best possible way.
That’s the recipe for having a great day, week, month, and year. May you have a great one!