What is better, to look at the glass as half full or half empty? In fact, there is another possibility: to fill it completely.
If we examine human development, we see that it usually advances through negative pressure. We are pushed from behind by suffering, fear, lack, competition, and the need to escape unpleasant states. Even our culture and art are largely built around conflict, tragedy, war, inner struggle, and deficiency. We are much more accustomed to avoiding evil than to being drawn toward true good.
But what is “good”? Is it really something we chose for ourselves?
From childhood, society teaches us that it is good to be rich, strong, successful, influential, and first. Consumer culture adds its own standards and constantly convinces us that we need the next achievement, possession, or status symbol. We run after happiness according to programs implanted in us by society, yet the satisfaction never lasts.
Positive thinking can help somewhat. It might shift our attention from the empty half of the glass to the full half, improve our mood, and give temporary relief. But it cannot fundamentally change the inner program according to which we live.
For that, we need a different environment.
Human beings are social creatures. Therefore, if we want to build a new inner nature, we need a society based on a different principle. Such a society does not yet exist ready-made; we have to build it together.
The integral approach to education teaches that I cannot truly fill my own lack by myself. We can fill one another. This is why the central law of an integral society is connection and love.
Through learning about human nature, the structure of the world, and practical exercises of connection in a small group, a person gradually begins to include the desires, thoughts, and feelings of others within himself. The sense of separation weakens, and instead we begin to feel a common network, as though one heart is operating among us.
When I begin to think not only about myself but about how to benefit others, I no longer feel only my individual life. I begin to feel the general flow of life that passes through all of us together.
This is where a different kind of happiness appears, one that is renewed constantly because it does not depend on temporary egoistic fulfillment.
If we truly want to fill the glass completely, we need to enter a society built on connection and mutual love. There, happiness is no longer a brief emotional state, but a new level of existence: a sensation of wholeness, connection, and life beyond our narrow individual limits.
Based on “New Life 225 – Maintaining a Positive Attitude, Part 1” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.