HOME>> HABIT #1 Practice happiness...with a new perspective
Take a moment and look at the glass below. Describe what you see.
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
~Abraham Lincoln
This is a fun measure to assess if someone is an optimist or a pessimist. An optimist would answer that the glass is half full. A pessimist would say that it’s half empty. How did you answer?
Do you usually focus on what you have or what is missing?
Do you think about what you need or what you’re blessed with?
Do you think about what is going good or what is going bad?
Do you point out the negatives or do you look for the positives?
Do you find things to criticize or things to compliment?
You can use your reflections above to put happiness into practice with this activity. Take a sheet of people and fold it in half. On one side title it: “glass half full” and on the other side title it “glass half empty.”
Then, under the appropriate columns, list areas in your life and in your thinking in which you tend to be
optimistic and areas in which you tend to be pessimistic. On another sheet of paper write down other ways you can view the things in the “glass half empty” column.
Look at the pictures below. What do you see?
Weisstein, Eric W. "Young Girl-Old Woman Illusion." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/YoungGirl-OldWomanIllusion.html
You should see a young woman and an old woman. In case you don’t see them both, the old woman’s nose is the young woman’s chin.
Weisstein, Eric W. "Rabbit-Duck Illusion." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rabbit-DuckIllusion.html
You should see a rabbit and a duck. In case you don’t see them both, the duck’s beak is the rabbit’s ears.
These pictures illustrate that there is more than one way to look at things. Sometimes we don’t see all that is there. People don’t always see what we see, and we don’t always see what they see. That doesn’t mean that their way is necessarily wrong. Instead, their perspective is different from ours.
Practice happiness: Think of some issues or beliefs that you and another person disagree on. Try to see things from their point of view. Put yourself in their shoes as best as you can. Try to understand why they think and feel the way they do. You just might discover that it’s easier to feel compassion and acceptance for others when you do this.
Are These Lines Straight Or Crooked?
Look Closely!
Believe It or Not...
- - - Every Line Is Straight! - - -
www.123opticalillusions.com
Is this image really moving?
It might look like it, but it’s not!
These optical illusions demonstrate that things aren’t always what they appear to be. We might be convinced of something when we are actually wrong. Just as our eyes can deceive us, sometimes our perceptions and feelings can also. We all know what it’s like to have been wrong about our interpretation of a situation or a person’s comments or motives. Sometimes we make assumptions and believe them without question. Our reality can be distorted, and we might not know it. Sometimes we just have to trust the facts regardless of how things appear.
Happiness is a conscious choice not an automatic response.
~Mildred Barthel
A pessimist sees the difficulty in opportunity, and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ~Winston Churchill
For more optical illusions, go to: 
