Your cup runneth over, but my glass is only half full.

I'm very interested in Moray's discussion of the proverbial glass. Never full, never empty; always somewhere in between. I've given the phrase quite a bit of thought before, and where I usually land is that it's an optimist's phrase because it assumes to begin with that there's something good in the glass. The complete sentence would be "The glass is half full of something good" or "The glass of something good is half empty." The meanings are reversed if you put, say, urine in the glass. Nobody I know would say, in a positive way, "That glass is half full of urine." And try to imagine a scenerio in which somebody would exclaim, "Hey! That glass of urine is half empty!"

I think the secret to the glass is to just accept that it's there and that no two people perceive it in exactly the same way, and try to have a sense of humor about it, no matter how much of whatever it contains. Easier said than done, I know, but nevertheless I'd like to share the following actual dialogue from a day when I spotted an abadoned bottle of wine, sitting on the pavement, while walking along with a couple of friends:

Me: Hey, it's still half full. Or half empty. However you want to look at it.
Friend: Who cares? Free wine!