When I was in seventh grade one of my teachers thought it would be good to teach our class a lesson on perspective.  She gave each of us a glass and had us fill it up half way with water.  She then asked us to carefully study the glass of water.  After we had time to study the glass of water she asked us a simple question.  She wanted us to tell her if the glass was half full or half empty.  She asked us to write our answer down on a piece of paper.

To me, this question was not as simple as she wanted it to be.  No, I wasn’t one of those people who claimed that it was 100% full because what space was not filled with water was actually full of air.  My problem was that I recognized that the cup was simultaneously half full AND half empty.  The answer I wrote down was “both.”  The teacher asked those who answered “half full” to raise their hands.  She then asked those who answered “half empty” to raise their hands.  She noticed that another girl and I did not raise our hands either time and asked us what answer we had given.  It turned out that she had also written down, “both.”

While the answer we provided did not fit into the selection of choices that the teacher wanted, it was technically true.  I wish I could say that the lesson the teacher gave us that day changed my life and opened my eyes to a powerful life lesson, but it didn’t.  The only reason I remember the lesson is that I felt out of place by being only one of two people to come up with an odd answer. Read More...