Perspective~ly Yours

Never complain about a bad hair day to someone who is bald. If you are going to tell someone with a newborn how tired you are after a late night out, you might want to duck, and quick. And if you think sharing your story about not being able to have a bathroom break at work because you were so busy with your teenager who is complaining about the amount of homework they have, you should probably take the opportunity to have yourself that quiet bathroom time instead.  This doesn’t mean that your hair doesn’t look bad, that you aren’t sleepy or that you have developed a camel’s ability to retain fluid, what it does mean is you have to be aware of perspective when you speak.

Perspective, in my opinion is really the driving force of everybody and everything. I remember as a child sitting in front of a half eaten unwanted dinner and my mother saying, “there are other children out there who would love to be eating that food not pushing it around the plate!”  These same children would also have loved to have my jacket, a hot shower, my old sneakers, and whatever book I was supposed to be reading for school.  Seriously those kids wanted everything I had.  I wondered where on earth my mother found all these children who wanted my stuff and if I didn’t tow the line I thought she would easily replace me for one of them.   Eventually I knew mom wasn’t shipping me off, but trying to give me some perspective. 

How many times will I be taught to put things into “their proper perspective?” I’ll let you know.  Perspective is tricky, as anyone who is trying to make some pasta for dinner knows.  If you should decide to check your email while the water is boiling (a watched pot never boils~ mom taught me that too), you can guarantee the water will be spilling onto the burner before you have answered the first of three PTA emails.  If you are making the same pasta before you have to get the kids to their sport practice in a half hour, you could hand write a letter and deliver it across town, before seeing what you think slightly resembles a water bubble breaking the surface. Perspective.

You see, perspective is relative.  We all know the well-worn sayings~ got a glass half full or empty?  It’s the failure to remember to look at things from another’s perspective that is generally our downfall.  Does that mean I have to eat the meat on my plate that my mom was so concerned I not leave behind? Nope, been a vegetarian for 12 years now.  Does that mean I get to judge you for eating a steak? Nope, unless you put ketchup on it, that just seems weird.  Does that mean I know what my kids are going through as they navigate through the teen years?  Not exactly, but I can try and see their points of view.  I can imagine, even if I can’t quite remember, the feelings that from their perspective that a mom who sings The Humpty Dance while driving down Hempstead Turnpike is the epitome of embarrassment.  Perhaps they will see from my perspective singing the Humpty Dance with the windows down driving with my two favorite people in the world is the epitome of a good afternoon.

So in summary, either I just wasted time writing while I could have been cleaning the toilet, folding the laundry, and cleaning up the yard. Or, I just got to spend some personal time sitting back, sipping some coffee and sharing my thoughts with you readers. Like everything else, it’s a matter of perspective.