My good friend Rabbi Johnny Shippel shared a very interesting and thought provoking concept with me this weekend. He asked me which paradigm I thought was better to have, the cup half empty or the cup half full.Without giving it any thought I played right into his trap! "Half full" is what I said. With a grin he replied, "neither".
This confused me a little bit since I know myself to be a very optimistic person and couldn't imagine anything other than a cup half full as the Ace in this deck of cards. You're supposed to work with what you have, right?
The next words that came out of his mouth have intrigued me for the past couple of days. Instead of thinking half empty or half full, if you were to pour the contents of the cup into a smaller cup, you would now in possession of one full cup.
Lowering Your Standards For The Win?
The first way that I tried to understand this concept was that by lowering your standards you are setting yourself up for less disappointments in life. In fact when Denmark was considered the happiest nation in the world, their lack of standards are what were credited for this happiness.
According to the Danes, their lack of great success as a nation has led them to have this national out look on life. Whenever something good happened they were overjoyed because it was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.
Scoring With The Abundance Mentality
I took a couple of days to think about this, and to discuss it with some friends. There was in fact a better reason for the cups over flowing, which had nothing to do with standards, and everything to do with attraction.
By looking at our cups as overflowing we are effectively creating the mentality of abundance. This abundance mentality is the way the law of attraction works to bring more of what we are focusing on into our lives.
While the cup is said to be overflowing with wine, it is metaphorically applied to every area of our lives. Thinking abundantly about health, money, and relationships will bring more and better into our lives.
Where could you apply this concept to get the biggest returns in your own life? Let us know in the comments below.
-Alex
