Tag: Perspective

Posted on

Redefining ’New’

Life brings change. It’s practically the only guarantee life does give us. We are born, we grow up, we meet people, we study, we find work we (hopefully) like, while locations, situations, work, interests, and so much else comes and goes as we navigate our journey. As someone who grew up moving to one city after another during my first twenty-or-so years, everything in life was always changing, from my address, to my school, to my friends, to my interests, and interestingly enough, it taught me to enjoy what was there right now, because who knew how long it would be a part of my life? It also taught me to be excited about new beginnings, seeing new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new ways of living, so much so that the ‘newness’ became a thing itself for me. New things still excite me. And starting over, and over, and over again created a cycle of everything always being fresh and exciting. After all, isn’t that what life is? I was sure it was, as that was my experience, and I was puzzled by people who had grown up in the same house, in the same town, with the same friends, doing the same things they had always done, and they seemed to enjoy it. Even more puzzling was their view that my life would have been a terrible thing to go through, and they felt a bit sorry for me that I had to endure it. The truth of the matter, of course, is somewhere in the middle, or perhaps floating above it all.

The expectation of new, fresh life in front of me, was, of course, simply how I saw it. There were constants that kept me grounded: my family, our dog, books, music, sports, vacations at the beach. Still, I learned that change, and how I dealt with it was a source of stimulation, which took me to a higher plane in deciding how to deal with new situations or people, and it was exciting to run these ‘experiments’ to see how they worked. As you might imagine, there were a lot of failures, especially as I learned to navigate society, that didn’t work out so well, and it was back to the drawing board. I was, however, up for the next challenge that might present itself. 

A new, different point of view can change anything and make it completely original, even though the idea had its origins elsewhere. But not always. Trying to create new things, new situations, for the sake of newness, and nothing else, is really reaching backward, attempting to create a part of a past life that may now have a golden glow to it, but as the saying goes, ‘no matter how often you look at the past, there is nothing new.’ We can miss an old situation, yet not need to be a part of it, as we have moved on to another place, emotionally and psychologically. So what is ‘new’ in our lives? Something recently invented or purchased? Certainly. A novel idea we need to dissect to better understand? Yes. A fact or story we never heard before? Absolutely. ‘New’ can be all of these things. If there is one thing my own life taught me, though, it is that ‘new’ depends on the point of view. Whatever we don’t know in our lives is new, of course, but looking at something ‘new’ as something ‘fresh’ changes how we see it. ‘Fresh’ has the connotation of new, unsullied, untouched; a brand new world to discover, each of us in our own way. Even if something older is seen with a fresh look at what it might mean in our lives now, it becomes new again. This is most evident in the art world, where paintings, sculptures, dances, plays, and stories are created from one specific point of view, revealing things that only its creator could know or conceive, but who’s new view of the subject can touch us in ways no other creator could.

New for the sake of new is not a goal. New to help us to reach a higher plane of knowledge or understanding is the bridge that fords the gap between where we have been and where we might be able to go. That different perspective, that new look, may be the keystone to a brighter future for us all. Seeing that new angle is our task as humans, and one that we must diligently look for until we are able to put the pieces together to see what new messages are there, and what we might learn from this new experience. And in that new world, we will find change for the better.

Posted on

The ‘Other’ Perspective

We know what we know. We like what we like. We make decisions and live our lives based on the knowledge these perspectives give us. When we drive a certain type of car, for example, it tends to inform us of that car’s quality, reliability, maneuverability, performance for quite a long time. If we did not find that car to our liking, we tend to hold on to that initial feeling for quite some time, and we tend to be hesitant to give it another chance. Our loss, because most companies try to improve their products as new technology becomes available or new designs eclipse the old ones for the better. The known in our lives is always a comfort zone; a place we know well enough to rely on it to help us through life without us needing to weigh decisions about each and every thing we encounter.

The known can also be a stumbling block because even when we are familiar with something or someone, we forget that other people and things change, just as we do. How many adults have attended a High School Reunion to find the ‘perfect person’ has struggled since we last saw them? That the star athlete everyone thought would ‘go pro’ and make millions of dollars has found that road closed to him, but has fallen in love with coaching his sport? Or the wallflower who found her niche in life and has prospered by taking advantage of her quiet determination? The known has become the other, and it is time to learn about their journey. When we first encountered these people, they were perceived as ‘other,’ or different, perhaps strange, and we did not understand them. Anyone who has traveled to a foreign country where they did not speak the language or understand the culture knows how this feels, and there is a certain fear that comes with those feelings. Fear of looking foolish, of saying the wrong thing, of accidentally offending someone. This is the root of prejudice, and only knowledge can stop it.

While other can, indeed, mean ‘different,’ it does not need to also be exclusive, keeping people apart. ‘Other’ can also mean a person or thing which is the counterpart of someone or something else. In this case, this person could allow us to grow in different ways, teaching us things that we never knew, and opening their minds to the things we experienced and they have not. A counterpoint at work is a great asset to anyone really wanting to grow, as suddenly, we begin to think of the ‘old familiar things’ in new ways, and perhaps creating better ways to use or improve them. If you are the manager of the Men’s department in a clothing store, you may know very little about what goes on in the Women’s department, how things are done there, or what their goals might be. Reaching out to your counterpart, in this case the Women’s manager—because, after all, many of your male clients have wives, girlfriends, daughters—and beginning to learn about the other business, will only make you stronger as you run your own, now armed with a more complete knowledge of the apparel world, and of the people who support your business. Your counterpart, formerly the other you did now know, can now be a supporting partner for you, and you for them,  just by taking the time to learn about that world.

‘Other’ can be friendly, it can be scary, and sometimes we become a bit too comfortable in our own world, and rely too much on the rubrics we know to get us through everything. While reaching out to others can be intimidating, just letting someone else know that you are interested in what they do can open doors that seem closed, and allow real communication and learning to continue. After all, we have all been the ‘other’ at one point in time, and finding a friend was the thing we most wanted.

Posted on

One Step Back

When we think of our lives, we tend to remember the wonderful times first: when we succeeded, when we felt loved, when we felt happiness. We tend to put the tougher times, when we failed, or felt lost, into the back of our mind and sometimes have trouble remembering the details of those events. In the long game, though, we fly and we fall at different times, and these are just steps we take on our journey. Because we tend to be hardwired for ‘good’ things, we tend to look at our failures, however large or small they may be, as bad things. The reality of a journey, however, is that a step backward is simply that: ONE step backward. That step back does not erase all of the steps we too forward to reach our current destination.

To keep perspective on this idea, think of learning to read and to write. When we first look at a printed page, it may look like a series of black dots and lines, but as we begin to learn the alphabet, we begin to see a particular order. We may not yet understand that order, or how to interpret it, but we needed to see those black lines and dots in order to reach the next step of seeing the individual letters as well as how they are grouped to form words. From the recognition of individual words, comes the cognizance of seeing them arranged in ideas and thoughts, which is the stage that we begin to actually read what was heretofore a mystery to us. Along that simplified passage, we come across things that confuse us, that we mispronounce as we read aloud, that we don’t understand, and these, too, are just steps forward.

What we forget as adults, as we become more knowledgeable, is that each step has been accomplished as just one part of a larger task, and that as we go forward, if we need to take a step back, that it does not erase all the forward steps we took to reach that point. As adults, we tend to look at learning as something we did in our past, and now that we are grown-up, we should already know this. Which begs the question of why should we know this? Anyone who has been taught to read as a teenager or an adult can identify with the struggle to learn to read; for them, however, this is a passage into living a fully functioning life that is truly new to them. They knew they might have trouble learning this, and knew they had to work hard to learn this new skill. It is the mindset of someone who knows what they know, but more importantly, knows what they don’t know, and that it may not be easy. They don’t see a step back—to learn past or future tense, for example—as something bad, but as yet another step taken to better understanding.

We all continue to learn new things as we progress through life, be it academic, athletic, artistic, and simply letting go of the idea of ‘at my age, I should know this…,’ will open us up to many new things that bring us to new levels of understanding. Even for those things we already know, new insight and awareness come with seeing things from a different perspective.