There is more to measuring a person’s perspective on life than asking, "Do you see the glass half-full or half-empty". When co-workers ask me "How are you," they frequently laugh at my enthusiastic "Absolutely OK!" or my more somber "All things considered, pretty adequate." When I leave at night and they say, "See you tomorrow," many are taken aback by my "Probably so." These answers have sparked dismay that something might be wrong to a sudden suspicion that I am leaving work for good. It is only my way of seeing the world with a range of realistic possibilities, not all of them positive, not all of them negative.

There is nothing wrong with being ‘absolutely OK’ … I am a middle-aged, middle-class, out-of-shape woman. I am not young, not wealthy, and not even in the same zip code with the concept of buff. I am not trying to survive the chaotic young adult years or the loneliness of watching as old friends and family pass. I am not digging through dumpsters for my next meal, nor am I dining on Beluga caviar and champagne. While I cannot run a marathon or even up a flight of stairs, I can move and talk and hear and see. How much better does life have to get?

As far as knowing that I will be at work the next day when expected, I know that may not be true. Car accidents happen. Bad weather happens. Crime happens. Sudden deaths happen. While it would be wondrous to know the future, I have learned that only the ‘now’ is truly certain. There are no guarantees that I will be around; there are no guarantees that others will be around. It is the "only now" that impels me to tell my husband how much I love him before I go off to work, to tell my fully-grown children to be careful when they are driving, to write to my friends how much I miss them.

If asked if I saw the world as "half-full or half-empty," I think I would either answer "yes" or perhaps "neither." Just as the glass does not have to be either half-full or half-empty, life is not black and white, and it is certainly more than shades of gray. Life is pessimistic and optimistic. There are no absolutes, nor total chaos. It just is.