Is the glass half empty or half full? Essay

An optimist will view a half filled cup as half-full, while a pessimist sees it as half empty. Happiness is water, while humans are the cups. Humans tend to either strive get a full cup for themselves, or they help others filling their cups while disregarding their own happiness. This is where a compromise comes in, where both cup and water must balance. Since it is very unlikely to get what is preferred most of the time, it is essential to balance the whole time. In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby finds himself in a predicament. The only motive he has in life is to marry his true love. He must choose money or love. People will lose their happiness to others, or try to take it all for themselves. Until an individual can make compromises, they will struggle with life. The main character Jay Gatsby has only been pursuing only his happiness. Gatsby looks at the ground and â€Å"sees the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder, and mounted in a secret place above the trees – he could climb to his if he climbed alone and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.† This shows Gatsby’s character, as he can imprint his fantasies in the real world, on such a mundane object of life, the sidewalk. Only Gatsby can see it because only he can climb the ladder into the upper class, he cannot take Daisy with him. Once he is up there, he can maintain his ignorance of life and maintains his god-like complex in his mindless dream. This is a good example of a metaphor for life as pap means lacking substance or real value. He has to choose between his happiness or status. Jay’s friend Meyer Wolfsheim played with the faith of fifty million people, like a burglar blowing a safe. One single p erson affected fifty million people. The narrator Nick Carraway is the only poor main character who lives on the pair of Eggs. Nick rents, Gatsby buys, and the Buchannan’s inherent. When Nick is offered a small job by Gatsby, he chooses to refuse. This could have bolstered his income and his happiness. Nick disapproved of Gatsby from the beginning to the end. Yet he aided and provided support to Gatsby with his wild plans. The only way Nick could escape his life was to get drunk. He gets drunk in Myrtle’s apartment and has lots of fun. During one of Gatsby’s parties, Nick took two fingerbowls of champagne, and â€Å"the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant elemental and profound.† Alcohol is his way out of this world, and this is one of the things he does not admit to. At one of the parties the woman under the white plum tree, symbolizing purity is accompanied by a famous director. The director works his way up and kisses her. She does not pull back from the early signs of sexual misconduct, which shows us that the rich are not pure and want to keep ascending, even by resorting to sexual acts. Nick was going to berate Tom for such irresponsible behavior, then realized he was talking to a spoiled child. Nick reflects on the situation and comments, â€Å"I couldn’t forgive him or like [Tom], but I saw what he had done was to him, highly justified.† Nick sees that the rich are very irresponsible and careless and leave the poor to suffer. This cycle continues on and on, it will never stop unless everyone is equal, which will never happen due to human nature. The only way for everyone to have equal amounts of happiness is if it is shared. Some of the thing that prevents this is when people either take away all of their happiness to give to someone else, causing an imbalance which may shape a person for the worst, which is known as spoiling them. If the opposite occurs, where one person takes all of the joy and leaves the consequences to someone else, everyone suffers, and nothing good ever comes out of it. As Nick Carraway once said, â€Å"Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality tipped by a cheerful world.†