A Matter of Perspective

Perspective; I use that word all the time. It’s all about perspective…it depends on your perspective …keep it all in perspective. Singer songwriter John Gorka has a great song about being a native of New Jersey. He sings about the girls with the high hair and measuring your socio economic status in terms of Jersey Turnpike exits. In the song he also says “If the world were to end tomorrow, I would adjust”. How’s that for adaptability and perspective? Maybe John Gorka is a triathlete.

At any rate, I often find myself keeping or putting things into perspective. A few key universal truths help keep my perspective on track. First point … things are rarely as bad as they first appear. I always try to remember that there are many people who are far less fortunate than I. I have a roof over my head, an amazing family, a great network of friends, my health, and I am gainfully employed in the best nation in the world. For all intents and purposes, my life is a fairy tale.

I also try to remember that most issues and problems are typically short term in the grand scheme of things. In most cases, there will be an end. So, the bigger challenge is not in the crises itself, but in how we accept and manage the crises. That is what will drive our comfort level and our happiness. And that is a choice that we all have. We choose to be happy or not by how we relate to what goes on around us. And how do we do that? We do so by keeping things in perspective.

We could choose to throw a gasket over that traffic jam or sub par report card. Or we can take a minute and think through how serious the issue really is. Will it matter next year? Is it something that I can control? Do I need to actually DO anything right at this moment? If your answer to those questions is “no”, there probably isn’t a whole lot that you should be stressing out about.

One of my favorite questions to ask in times of apparent dire straights is “What’s the worst that can happen”? Not because I am tempting the devil or evoking any bad karma. I just want to try to determine the severity of the situation. That way I can have multiple back up plans. I hope for, pray for, and expect the best outcome in any situation… but I try to have a plan for the worst case scenario as well. It may not work for everyone, but it works for me. That way, if I get rocked by something, I can move to plan B, relatively unscathed.

Something to think about the next time you THINK you are having a crises or a meltdown. When looked at in contrast to the big picture, does this stuff really matter?