Is the Red Cup Half Empty or Half Full?

Welcome to the latest contrived societal controversy. Starbucks is using blank red cups to sell coffee during Christmas time. Oh, the humanity! Stand back please! Oh my!

This started when a video posted by a Christian social media celebrity went viral in which he ranted that “Merry Christmas” was not on the holiday cup. He suggested that Christians should go to Starbucks and tell coffee baristas that the name to assign to the order is “Merry Christmas” thereby forcing Starbucks to write “Merry Christmas” on the coffee cup.

Starbucks should reply, “Ho Ho Ho Thanks for the extra sales!”

In the meantime do we really expect coffee shops and other businesses to have a vast assortment of cups at the ready for every celebratory religious holiday? Moreover, do we expect them to quiz their guests as to their religious persuasion?

Can you make the Sign of the Cross please? Grab a Merry Christmas cup.

Have you been circumcised? Well then, Happy Hanukah!

How about those seventy-two virgins? Happy Eid Al-Fitr and here’s your coffee extra sweet.

What goes around comes around? Here’s your Karma Frosted Mocha Latte.

What is your sign? Happy Mercury Retrograde! Here’s your coffee and your first significant event of the day! Make it a good one!

Is your cup half empty or half full?

Actually, the cup has a finite amount of liquid in it that remains a given value regardless of our subjective ideological examination. So, with that dispassionate analysis of this rhetorical cliché being said, let us apply the same practical breakdown to the blank red cup hullabaloo as it relates to beliefs.

I know some of you may be strong believers and I respect that. However, so far there is no empirical evidence of any unworldly realm beyond the physical. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something out there somewhere. Rather, it just means that at this time we can’t determine anything definitive about the hereafter and therefore any conclusions about such speculations are yet to be written on a blank slate. Ah, another appropriate cliché! How fitting it is that Starbucks should be giving their guests a blank red cup!

The only thing we know for sure is that life is short. Yes, this is not just another cliché but rather a monumental understatement. Our awareness of our own eventual mortality and the colossal value of every day of life as we know it is what unites all of us in a shared humanity.

Here’s one more cliché for you. Have a nice day! Maybe the next time a coffee barista utters that little polite banality our way we should take a moment of reflection and really appreciate it.

After all, we never know when just one more nice day is all we are going to get.