As I sit here on this wonderfully
sunny May evening, I am pondering the importance of perspective.
As we know, depending on your perspective, one issue or one thing
or one person can look completely different. For the good or the bad. To illustrate, I give you “The Tale
of the Unimaginative Unmentionables”...
Many moons ago, when I was a
sweet young(er) thing, I found myself at a family reunion, doing laundry. We were staying at my mother and
father-in-law’s, and I wound up emptying the washer of my in-laws wet
laundry. You know, underwear is a very
telling thing. The difference between a
pair of tighty-whities coming out of the washing machine versus a lacy black thong
is quite stark. I think it’s safe to say
that what you see does colour (colour! ha!)
the way you see the wearer. To cut to
the chase, my mother-in-law seemingly had only one style of undies, and that
was plain, white briefs. To me, that
made her seem like some kind of boring, colourless drone. I
mean, what woman doesn’t jazz up their life with pretty underthings, even if
they have to be buttoned-down and conservative on the outside? Truly, those whites confirmed
every negative impression I’d ever had of her as uptight, white and downright
lacking in imagination.
Cut to a few years later: Miz Jo is in Walmart, searching for a pair of
undies that might actually fit her expanding derriere. Ahem. Imagine
her consternation when the only ones in her size come not with pretty flowers,
lacy frills or zingy stripes but...white.
Bland, boring white. Am I bland
and boring? I’d like to think not. I’d like to think I’m one of those
open-minded, bohemian sorts who are the furthest thing from whitebread. Being “vanilla” is not what I want. But if I died tomorrow and anyone saw my unmentionables,
all they’d see is underwear that a nun would be comfortable wearing to
confession. You see? Perspective is everything. All of a sudden, it hit me that even if my
mother-in-law had wanted to wear
something else, she might not have had a choice. Unfortunately, I only understood that once I
was faced with the same choice (or lack thereof). My question is: Why do so many people assume that their
perspective is the only way to see things?
And why in heaven’s name is
it so bloody hard to cut other people some slack?
For example: my eldest son was in Grade 3, and his class
was supposed to take a field trip to the Japanese cultural centre. It was something he’d been looking forward to
for quite a while, and I had made sure his permission slip was handed in on
time, along with fee. It was a big deal for him. Unfortunately, the night before the “big
day”, he was up for hours with asthma attacks, so I let him sleep in a
bit. It wasn’t until almost 9:00am
before I remembered the field trip.
Knowing he would be horribly disappointed if he missed it, I drove to
the school in a panic with him, only to see the bus heading out of the school
parking lot. I chased the bus, hoping
they would stop so I could get him on the bus.
At a red light, I jumped out of the van, raced to the bus and banged on
the door to get the driver’s attention.
She shook her head (rightfully so - what was I thinking??) and kept
going. She didn’t know that my gas tank
was reading “empty” and it was three days before pay day and I had no money for
gas. I ended up driving all the way
across the city, following the bus, praying that we wouldn’t run out before I
got my son to where he needed to go. The
bright side? My boy got to his field
trip. Plus, I found out just how far you
can really go after your “tank empty” light goes on. It’s pretty far, believe me.
The down side? Well, when I told my brother the story, he looked
at me like I was an idiot. I was trying
to make him laugh at another “OMG, Jo’s A Dip” story, but all I got was the
stinkeye. He
thought I was irresponsible for trying to catch up to the bus and get the
driver to take my son the rest of the way.
Did he ask me why I did what I did?
Nope. You see, my brother’s
perspective was (and continues to be) that I’m a screw-up. Any mitigating circumstances would just have
gotten in the way, really. My perspective
was that I wanted to make sure my son wouldn’t be disappointed. The way I saw it, it wasn’t his fault that I
had no money for gas because his dad had been downsized out of a job and we
were broke. Unfortunately, since my
brother didn’t bother to ask why I’d done what I’d done, from his perspective,
I was simply a disorganized twit who was also a useless parent. Big difference, eh?
It takes a couple of things to
have perspective. Reliable intel is
key. Imagination and empathy are
helpful, too. For sure, it takes a generosity of
spirit. But it’s funny how as some
of us become more settled in life, it becomes harder to be generous. You forget
there was a time when you had to choose between paying one bill or
another. You forget that certain foods
(cheese, anyone?) used to qualify as luxury items on your grocery list. Worst of all, you start making assumptions
about how other people live, how they approach the world.
You assume that because you have enough money
to put your kids in dance and sports and new clothes that everyone has that
ability. You assume that because you’ve
never been fired from a job or downsized (or whatever it’s politically correct
to call it nowadays) that the only reason someone would lose their job is
because they’re lazy or stupid or lacking in motivation. (Ah yes, “motivation”. There’s a twenty-five cent word that gets
thrown around a lot without really meaning much.) You assume that everyone is able to buy new
duds for work in order to present themselves in a certain way. You don’t realize that perhaps the reason your co-worker shows up in the same outfit five days in a row is because he genuinely does not
have the means for a second one, not because he’s a slob who doesn’t care.
It takes some effort and imagination to think
that maybe some people struggle to get out of bed in the morning. It takes even more to speculate that maybe some
people are desperately lonely, and afraid that they are just one little
screw-up away from going off the rails for good. When you are mentally healthy, your perspective
might be that a depressed person is just suffering from a lack of “motivation”
to put on a happy face and get to work.
It’s only when you find yourself in the ER with a hysterical friend or
relative who is genuinely distraught and unable to “snap out of it” that you
realize that maybe (just maybe!) your assumptions are slightly unfair. Just a wee bit off, perhaps.
Like a happily married person who
doesn’t understand that others are miserable in their relationships. Unhappy to the point that they will do
themselves (or someone else) serious harm if they can’t get out of their
marriage. You might attribute to these
people who want out of their marriages, a certain lack of moral fibre. Your perspective might be that they are weak,
self-indulgent asses who only care about their own happiness and don't mind sacrificing their spouse and kids to get it.
The idea that perhaps these same weak-asses
have been killing themselves to make their marriage work despite the fact that
their partner has unexpectedly morphed into some unfeeling, unsympathetic
jackass doesn’t occur to some happily married people who are able to count on
their partners to…oh, I don’t know…tell the truth on a regular basis. It just doesn’t come into their way of
thinking, because their spouse is not the kind of twit that spends money like
it’s going out of style and then lies to cover it up. Or develops a drinking problem. Or starts gambling online. Or physically or verbally abuses them. Whatever.
No, for the people who are fortunate enough to have chosen a partner
they can actually rely on for that “better or worse” stuff, divorce is just
for self-centered whiners who aren’t adult enough to stand by their decisions. That’s their perspective. Is that right?
Or fair? You decide.
I was told once to avoid people
who start off any sentence with “you should”.
Amen to that.
“You Shoulds” are people who are full of opinions and advice, yet don’t
always know what they’re talking about.
Or if they do know a bit, they assume they know it all. That’s when they’re REALLY dangerous. However, there’s one statement I'd like to make that does start with those two little words:
You should try every single day
to find someone whose perspective is different from yours. Talk to them.
Find out why it’s that way. Learn
something new. Challenge yourself to see
things from their point of view. Maybe it will help you
to see the world in a different light.
You think mental illness is baloney? Talk to someone who is struggling with theirs. You think someone is a joke at parenting? Ask them what is most challenging for them. Think someone's a tree-hugging freak because they're vegan? Ask them what made them choose that path. It might change your perspective on things, or at least on that particular
person. Or it might not. You never know.
Speaking from personal experience, it sure as
heck couldn’t hurt.
