Perspective

• When you are young, it’s not what you think about you that matters. It’s not even what other people think about you that matters. It’s what you tell yourself other people think about you that matters. So be kind to yourself. When you are old, it only matters who you really are, because by then you know.
• Watch out for chameleons, the problems that look like one thing, but are really another.
• Limits force creativity.
• Important vs Urgent
• Your life may not be exactly what you envisioned, but the amazing thing is it’s yours. You have the great opportunity to do with it as you please.
• The power of ‘get’.
• The power of ‘yet’.
• This too shall pass.

Perspective is a really interesting thing. Everyone has one, and they aren’t always the same.

You look at things from where you stand, what you’ve seen, and what you experience. Your perspective also depends on what what you were taught, what you’re looking for, and what you think you should see.

If you think there is racism, or bias, or unfairness, that’s what you will see. If you think there is justice, love, and caring, that is what you’ll see. If you are open to just seeing what there actually is, then you will have the gift of seeing the same old things in new ways.

Time

I’ve learned that perspective changes with time.

When you are young, most people have a self-centered perspective, and being a teenager is hard!

You think what you said in the group chat was stupid, and everyone is laughing at you when you’re not around. You think the answer you gave in Chemistry class was embarrassing because it was wrong. You think it’s the end of the world if you don’t go to that party.

These are the stories you tell yourself.

At this point in your life, if you stop and reflect on those moments, you’ll realize that it’s not what ‘you’ think about ‘you’ that matters. It’s not even what other people think about you that matters. It’s what you TELL YOURSELF other people are thinking about you that matters.

The bottom line: It’s the stories you tell yourself that really matter.

The Secret

The good news is I have a secret for you. Everyone else is thinking so much about themselves, they don’t have time to think about you, or what you said or did! They are worried about what THEY said in Chemistry class. What joke THEY told that bombed. What party THEY didn’t get invited too. So be kind to yourself, because it’s what you tell yourself that impacts you the most.

Speaking to you from the future, the good news is when you are older it only matters who you really are, because you end up telling yourself the truth in your own stories about yourself more and more often.

You realize most people don’t care about you or what you said because they are too busy caring about themselves. You know who you are and that frees you up to change who you are if you don’t like what you see.

I think that’s why many people have mid-life crisis’s. They realize they aren’t who they hoped they would be, they haven’t accomplished their dreams, and there is a long way to go.

It’s Never Too Late

The other good news is it’s never to late to start.

I want to expand a little on your self talk, and how by changing your self talk, you change your perspective.

This self talk for everyone often revolves around ‘I can’t do that.’, or ‘I’m not good enough.’, or ‘I have to do that thing., but I can’t’. What I want you to see is you have the ability to change these things that seem like chains that bind you, into opportunities for growth.

The Power of Yet and Get

How do you do that? You change your perspective with one of two words: ‘get’ and ‘yet’. Simply add or substitute them into the words you’re already saying: ‘I can’t do that, YET.’ makes it so different. Or ‘I GET to do that thing.’

Sure, you ‘have‘ to do you homework. Sure, you ‘have‘ to go to family dinner (I can see you rolling your eyes). But you also ‘get‘ to learn something new. You ‘get‘ to spend time with your family every day.

Sure, you ‘can’t’ speak Italian. Sure, you ‘can’t’ run a marathon. Sure, you ‘can’t’ afford a house in Toronto. But with enough time, practice, and perspective, you can do all those things and more.

Put yet after a statement, you’ll find it completely changes things. I can’t speak Italian, yet. I can’t run a marathon, yet. I can’t afford a house in Toronto, yet. You can to do them all, because millions of people no smarter or more capable than you have done it in the past.

For you, it’s just not yet. You will get there, if you decide to, and tell yourself you can. Yours is the only belief that matters.

Beyond Your Control

Now not everything in life is based on your own actions. Life happens to us all. Sometimes the parts of life that happen can be good or bad, but really, they often can be perceived as both. Just look at any competition. A win is a great thing for one team, and the worst thing for the other.

When you’re looking at something that has happened to you in the past, or is happening to you right now, it can seem unfair, or limiting. But is it really? How that event is perceived is defined by your perspective. If something is limiting you, putting you in a tough spot or painting you into a corner, what you have to realize is limits force creativity, and this is an opportunity to excel.

Let me use hockey as an example. It is a sport, and it has limits. There are specific rules. The game starts and stops at specific times, and lasts for a specific amount of time. There are ways to act, and penalties if you don’t follow those rules. In fact, rules define the game, and how you act within it is up to you.

Can you imagine if everyone just did what they liked? It would be chaos. The limits define the game, and the creativity within those limits is amazing.

It’s the same with life.

Limits of any kind force creativity, and no limits or challenges can be just as hard. Ask any writer staring at a blank page with writers block. The world is theirs, but they can’t do anything with it. The painter is limited with color, a brush, and a canvas.

Think of all the beautiful things that come alive within limitations. Does a painter cry because his vision has to come to life in a small canvas that’s only 2′ wide x 4′ high? I’ve never heard of one doing so. So take that thing that is happening to you, and get creative in your outlook about it.

Important and Urgent

The reality is there will be things that are harder to define, and happen outside of an arena.

Not everything that happens to you in life can be simply defined as good or bad, like winning or losing a game. There are many things in life that will simply scream for your attention. Some of them truly deserve it, but some of them are just noise. The hardest part is to classify what is happening and truly stepping back and getting the correct perspective.

I like to put things calling for your attention into one of two buckets:

1. Important, and
2. Urgent.

Ask yourself first: Is this problem important? If not, the action required is simple: ignore it.

If it’s not important it doesn’t matter if it’s urgent or not. If it’s not important you are better off spending your time on something that IS important. That simple strategy should eliminate a ton of noise.

• If you’ve decided this thing wanting your attention IS something important and worth your time, you have to decide is this problem urgent or not.
• If it’s important AND urgent, do your best to deal with it right now because it will only get more important and urgent with time.
• If it’s important and yet not urgent, make sure to get it done, or handled, or dealt with because things that are important and not urgent tend to evolve into important AND urgent if you’re not careful.

While these important and urgent things happen to all of us, a strategy to make your life significantly easier is deliberately choosing to spend your time on the things that ARE important, but NOT urgent.

The more time you can spend on important but not urgent, you will find the fewer urgent things there are in the long run. The emergencies you didn’t plan for are dealt with in advance, and by dealing with those important things sooner rather than later, you will be much better off in the long run.

The Obstacle Is The Way

What about challenges you face, or obstacles to overcome? What is your perspective when you encounter difficult times?

The first thing, as my grandfather used to say, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. So when you’re looking at an obstacle, is it a mountain? Really? Or is there something in your perception that is tricking you into thinking it’s a bigger deal than it really is?

There are problems that are chameleons: they look like one thing, but they really are another. So what are you facing? Is it something truly gigantic, or if you look at it a different way, is it really a molehill?

I need to talk for a moment about the Stoics. I am a great fan of their perspective on much that happens in life. I have adopted their key belief that it’s not what happens to you that matters, because most of that is beyond your control. It’s how you react that matters, and much of that depends you your perspective.

The King’s Tale

Let me tell you a story about a king. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ll repeat it here for you as it is a good example of how to take the perspective of a Stoic.

There once was a king who had a wise man in his kingdom. He had heard stories about this man, so called for him to come to the palace one day. When the wise man arrived before the king, the king asked him a question: ‘What is the wisest perspective you can have on the world?’. The wise man asked the king if he could go think about it, and come back with an answer. The king granted his request.

A month passed, and the wise man asked for an audience with the king. When he approached, he said he had an answer for the king. He reached into his pocket and gave the king a simple golden ring as a gift. The king looked at the wise man questioningly, and the man asked him to read the inscription on the inside. The king looked, and the inscription read ‘This too shall pass’. The king sat for a moment, then put the ring on, and granted the wise man his leave.

Not long after, the king lost his son in a battle. While he was torn in grief, he remembered the gift from the wise man, and said to himself, ‘this too shall pass’. And with time, some of the pain did.

Years passed and the kingdom prospered and grew, so much so they threw a great party celebrating all of the bounty of the land. While the king sat at the head of the grand table, watching all of the celebrations, he looked at the ring he wore, and thought to himself ‘this too shall pass’. And so it did.

The lesson of this story is not to give up grief when you lose, or not to celebrate when you win, but only to know that your perspective on things can keep you grounded, both in the good times, and the bad.

Your life may not be exactly what you envisioned, but the amazing thing is it’s yours. How you look at it is important, and you have the great opportunity to do with it as you please.