The second in what is now technically a series – “understanding what they preach.” Per the first installation around “integrity” – older people are always offering Hallmark card advice that’s unfortunately void of a “how to” appendix. Here we unpack those stock phrases with the help of dictionary.com and, sometimes, Jesuit priests.
Today: “perspective”
- “What you need is a little perspective around this issue to really help you make a decision,” they say…
- Or, “perhaps if you had a better perspective on life you’d be less stressed”
- And then there’s the very promising, “it’s your perspective on where you are and where you want to be that helps you navigate the tough times”
You could replace “perspective” with any number of words – courage, thoughtfulness, money, drugs, and it would sound just a valid. So what is it? How do you know when you have it? And where do you get it if you don’t?
Well if you attend Boston College you can actually major in this word we can’t currently define. Correct – you can obtain a B.A. in “Perspectives.” But since I was a Comm. major as that is the most fun major, we’ll have to settle with this:
perspective (noun)
(n.b. – there are many definitions but I removed all that seemed to involve geometry for the obvious reason that I don’t know geometry).
- the state of one’s ideas, the facts know to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here for a few years to see local conditions in perspective.
- the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship: Your data is admirably detailed but it lacks perspective.
Sometimes when I’m visiting my friends in Boston, and it’s past midnight, and I really really want a fallafel, and I say, “which way do I walk to get to the nearest fallafel stand?” and they respond, “you don’t walk anywhere, and there isn’t one and go back to sleep Jessie” I get annoyed. This is because of dictionary.com definition number one. I completely lack perspective on the rest of the normal world because I spend my past-midnight’s in Manhattan. As such I’ve grown to want/expect/casually demand things that lack a general perspective on reality: $9 manicures city-wide, $5 pashminas on 30% of street corners, bodegas…anywhere.
So step one – I lack perspective about what I should and can have outside my bubble. Not good, but adjustable. The problem is actually when you hit step two – lacking perspective about the importance of those details in the grand scheme of your life. As you know I visited L.A. last week. There I stayed in apartments where I could literally run around (and obviously did because it was a novelty and I also enjoy proving a point in a physical manner). My first day back in New York I fell over my suitcase (a duffle) when I got out of bed because there isn’t really space for both those things inside my room. I got dressed in my 5×5′ bathroom because the duffle was taking up the bedroom floor space. But then I walked outside my apartment and took care of a baker’s dozen errands all completely on foot stopping only for the greatest bagel I have an ever will eat. So for reasons I cannot explain, the effects of my surroundings have given me the perspective that this is the best place in the world for me to live. Is it the smartest financially – absolutely not. Am I the most comfortable I could be – no way. But – to flip to dictionary.com definition number two, I see all the relevant data before me, relate it together, and decide that this is where I should be.
That version of perspective is the one parents are always harping on. The “see the relevant data part.” I believe it means looking at the big picture, the whole world with a focus on the truths and lies and joys. Being able to say yes, life is long, we are more fortunate than 99.9% of the world, family is very important, hard work will get you places, you can’t win ’em all and so on and so forth – truly seeing all the facts of our life and those around us and then “relating it together.” Saying, okay if life is long and we’re more fortunate and family and hard work and luck and so on then I can probably take that job or stay in this apartment or save some extra money or calm the fuck down. I can see myself in the world, give myself my proper place, and knowing that, place move forward slowly or quickly because I get what I can and should do to keep living purposefully.
That’s a big paragraph, I know, but the crux of it – the “how do I get some” is the data. You’ve got to gather data about the world to understanding it and then place yourself in it. You have to go to Boston and L.A. even though you love New York to see those other life options. You’ve got to meet a 26-year-old mother of two to understand the pluses and minuses of your 26-year-old single life. Perspective is about placement in life – accepting and understanding. But the tricky part is it’s not really about your life. It’s about placement in life at large. Figure that out and – apparently – a lot of other vague things that older people say start to magically fall into place.
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Good stuff. Keep it comin’.
Good stuff. Keep it comin’.
How can you so young and so “old” all at the same time?