I think, It’s All About Perspective
A beautiful storm hit my city last night along with many others. All day, I was excited to be in the midst of winter and enjoyed a snow day at home, where I found myself looking out the window every 5 minutes. I was watching to see how powerful the wind was blowing all of the snow and how quickly the roads filled up. As time passed, less and less cars were driving on the street and it was nice knowing that when 5 o’clock would come, I didn’t have to hear the annoying and impatient honking of people trying to get onto the highway.
As I woke this morning excited to take on the day, I dressed my Wiggy and took him downstairs for a walk, of course to go potty. I will mention, I do have a dog park just below me. But I thought; a nice stroll around the block will be a good way to show Wig that it’s cold, it’s wet, and it’s going to be like this for a while, so if he needs to go, he’s gonna have to suck it up and get it out!
Opening the door and coming back into the heated building, I waited for the elevator by dancing in my own little box to help bring my body temperature back to normal. As the elevator door slid open, a older man with a young attitude greeted me inside with a “oh sup”.. Noticing his floor wasn’t pressed, I pushed mine and asked him what his was. He replied “oh 14 please”. This ignited a conversation to begin and the next words that came out of his mouth were, “shitty out there isn’t it?”
I think it’s all about perspective. The moment those words came out of his mouth, all I could think about was how just 12 hours earlier, I was calling my family members individually to show them how beautiful the snow was, how it was falling onto my balcony, how I could open my window and wait 20 minutes to grab a new environmentally made icicle. All I could see was the snow blowing in the wind, watching it fall from the sky out the window to my right, I could see the covered but empty roads starting to forget what they were paved for and the sky and air above me so clouded I could barely find the building next to me. I could feel that feeling you get when you haven’t seen anyone in so long, it’s almost as if you’re living in a world alone.
But just moments before those words came out of his mouth, what he may have been thinking about was himself spending nights alone in the cold, dreading living in a house as he fell asleep knowing he had to get up to shovel the drive way the next morning, or maybe he had to drive today to drop his kids off. Maybe that’s why he lives in an apartment, or maybe that’s why it looked like he came from the parking garage. It may have taken him back to a time when his friends surprised him with a rude and unexpected snowball fight, or a time when he couldn’t go home for the holidays due to a snow storm. This man had enough bad memories to make a comment to a complete stranger about something he felt was “shitty”.
With no hesitation in my mind on my response, I replied to him with the simple answer “no”. He looked at me and while only being able to see his eyes, the rest of his face covered by his mask, I could see in his raised eyebrows that he was surprised. I then mentioned that at least we didn’t have to shovel anything and while he agreed, the elevator door opened and he walked away.
Perspective is everything. I believe as long as you see the simple beauty in everything, you can go on living a radiant life full of curiosity and wonder. And I get it, sometimes life doesn’t treat you the right way and it can become so easy to get down on yourself and think negatively. But the older I’ve gotten, the more i’ve started to realize that it’s just the ego trying to stay relevant. Life may get you down and things may not go as planned, but thinking negatively is a choice, feeling emotion is a choice. You can choose to see the good in every situation and find what you’ve learned from each experience without getting down. Nothing in life is as “shitty” as you think it is. You just need to branch out and look at it from a different persective.
