A Matter of Perspective

It's interesting just how different things can be when you look at them from a alternate point of view. Mind you, the first obstacle to this is that one tends to be trapped in their own personal sphere of perception. That sounds all fancy, but all I mean by that is that we tend to get stuck in our own heads.

Let's face it. In the big show that is life, we tend to cast ourselves as the star. And why wouldn't we? We spend every waking moment seeing the world through our own eyes, after all. And no matter how low your ego gets, I'd hope that no one qualifies their existence only through the life of someone else (undying affections to various offspring notwithstanding). Really, you don't have much choice but to put the world into your own sphere. Be it comedy, tragedy, musical, drama or some quirky mix of them all.

But it does have its down side. For one, it's easy to fall into the trappings of being self-absorbed. I'm as big a victim of this as anyone (as any good friend of mine can attest to), and while it can be good to be involved primarily in self for brief periods of time, you run the risk of shutting yourself off so far that you become blind to what's going on around you.

Which leads me back to point of view. One can attest to the principles of empathy and sympathy all they'd like, but they are poor substitutes for a true sense of stepping outside of oneself.

For example, I just recently had an interesting exchange with an old friend of mine (actually, I’ve had several interesting exchanges with several different old friends, but those are other stories…). Back in the olden days (Is high school really considered that now? Sheesh…), I always considered them someone that I enjoyed hanging out with. Of course, from my perspective, I was a burden to be around (which isn’t necessarily untrue), so I valued any time they’d actually break down and hang out with me at all.

The crazy thing is that from their perspective, almost the opposite was true. They were the younger, fish out of water in the group who ended up being grateful to me for letting them into my sphere. Believe me when I say that had I not heard such a thing, it would never occur to me that anyone would even think I could wield enough influence to be excluding, let alone be grateful that I’d accept them into the fold. Honestly, most social subsets I’ve ever been a part of by default have no restrictions. If they did, I wouldn’t be a part of them.

But my point here is just how one’s own perception of self can blind you to what the truth of what the world might be. Aside from bizarre truths like the fact that most people were far more popular in high school than they ever realized (which is incredibly useful to know after you’ve graduated, by the way…), what other things have you overlooked in life? How many times have you brushed off an opportunity to meet someone new, thinking in your head that there’s no way that someone would want to talk to you when the truth is that same person might see you from across the room and think that you’d never be bothered to give them the time of day? Have you ever been so busy trying to figure out the right thing to say to someone in a time of need that you miss out on the fact that someone may just need a sympathetic ear? A hand to hold? Another person in the room?

I’m getting a bit off track here, but my point is this. We will never be perfect people. By default, we will always have our flaws, hang-ups, and imperfections. And no matter how observant we try to be, our focus will almost certainly always be mostly on ourselves. We are, generally speaking, the most important people in our lives. But it’s probably not a bad idea, every now and again, to take a look at the world, and especially ourselves in the world, from another set of eyes. You never know what you'll see there.