I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Is your glass half full, or half empty?"  One friend asked "of what?"  I asked if there were mixers.

At the recent immersion session for incoming students for the Master’s of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) at the University of Pennsylvania, James O. Pawelski, Ph.D., director of education and Senior Scholar in the Positive Psychology Center led us a series of lectures on the foundations of positive psychology, and initiated one with a slide of a glass filled halfway, smiled, and asked “So, what do you see?”

To the bunch of "Applied Positive Psychology" folks, the answer was obvious.

And, it turns out, wrong:

The naturally curious and well-read group began diving in philosophically, metaphysically and neurobiologically. We spent a good 20 minutes or so offering thoughts about how we saw the glass, with James fielding responses and challenging the answers. His engaging style had the ability to foster both support for an answer and a challenge to make us think. Finally he turned around and faced the slide on the screen, and then turned back to us.

“When I look at this,” he said, “I see a completely full glass.” Each of us took another gander at the slide. I can tell you this glass was only half filled to my eyes, and yes, I was willing to put forth the argument that it was seen that way rather than half empty, but there was no way it was full.

People challenged him, some spoke of distortions, or the fact that, like when you fill a water reservoir for your coffee maker there is a line that tells you “fill to here” because that is the “full” mark. But none of these defenses, descriptions or persuasions influenced James. He held firm, turning back to the screen and then back to us.

No,” he said smiling, “that glass is definitely completely full.”

We stopped putting forth our points of view and waited to hear his explanation.

“It is completely full,” he began as he looked at each of us around the room, “half with water, and half with air.”

This rocked the class, but it dumbfounded me.

I realized that this truth had completely escaped me. I was so focused on the visual that I wasn’t able to look past it to the intangible. I was trained to understand the question and thought there were only two answers to choose from. The more I argued my perception, the further away I got from the truth and the greater understanding of the problem in front of me.

So, how do you see your glass?

Or are you the type just to ask, "Is there coffee?"