We have all heard of the optimist who looks at a glass and believes it half full of water. We also know of the pessimist who will call the glass half empty. I don't think that reality stops here. It goes beyond to the person who will say:
"The glass is half full of water and half full of air"
I call him the realistic optimist. In today's world it is not enough to be an optimist. It is also necessary to be a realist. Just living your life with rose tinted glasses perched on your nose is not going to give you a rosy present, or future for that matter. You need to be in touch with reality to get the best out of life.
Just as you need to have two sides to a coin to make it whole and real, you need to look at all aspects of life to make the best of it . The half of the glass that is filled with water is needed when you want to drink it, but you really can't drink that water, if the air above it not available to you to breathe!
Everything gains importance at its appropriate time and becomes indispensable when it is needed. Therefore to consider anything as inferior, or unnecessary, will not be a wise thing to do.
Being a realist doesn't mean that you should always be wary of life, nor does it mean that you should look only at the surface reality. It simply means that you should not summarily dismiss anything as unimportant and unneeded.
A needle and a sword cannot be interchanged for doing the work of the other. Hence they cannot be considered better or worse than the other. Just like things, each person too is important and is there to do his or her own job in the world. A kingdom cannot be run without the king but can the king's palace be run without his minions?
In the greater scheme of things, everything has it's own place and there's a place for everything.
Nothing is inferior or unwanted, or it won't be there on this planet. Accept the good with the bad, the useful with the useless because you never know how things may change, and in the next moment, what you thought was useless and inferior may be the very thing you need the most!
© Manic Sylph
