The other day my fellow faculty and I were challenged to say whether we thought the glass was half empty or half full. You know the drill. Life is full of positives and negatives and personality has a lot to do with whether you focus on the positives (while diminishing or excluding the negatives) or on the negatives (and diminish the positives). This is a recurring question with the seeming intent to promote optimistic outlooks. The theory, I think, is that by being optimistic you will channel your energies to promoting the positives, do good work, and the optimism becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Remember Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking?
Realism doesn't get a seat at the table too often. Economists, politicians, and the run-of-the-mill citizen do not know how to even begin being realists. Scientists know how to approach it, but generally tend to be buried in their specialties. It is only the climate scientists and energy scientists, for example, who are being forced to accept the reality of our future.
The glass isn't half empty or full. The biophysical reality glass is draining fast and will soon be full of air (or CO2). So on this day of half sunlight and half darkness reflect on how you see things.
For myself I continue to be a short-term pessimist but a very-long-term opitimist. I am working on some more aspects of human evolution that I hope to get done over my spring break. Meanwhile enjoy the lengthening daylight hours.