Perspective

 

These scary giants aren't real. Well, they are real, but they're not alive. It depends on how you define 'real.'

 

 

 

One of the ways I've discovered to make life a little better is to adjust how I look at things. I've found that if you have the right perspective, something that seems bad can become not so bad or even really fortuitous. You just have to decide how you want to look at it.

 

I notice more and more that people lose perspective very quickly or never had any to begin with. For instance this winter - it's been unusually mild. Since Christmas [which was in the 40s] it's been well above seasonal temperatures. We did have a few isolated days where it was in the 30s and windy - and interestingly on those days, the people I encountered were all quick to say how 'brutal' the cold was and how 'horrible' the winter was.

 

Because it was 30 degrees one day in a week of 40-degree days.

 

Last weekend we had our first snow storm of the season. It was a whopper. We got over 2 feet of snow in 24-hours, and the cleanup was exhausting. It happened on a Saturday - which made it fortuitous because we had no plans, nowhere to be and had no reason to go driving or otherwise traveling. We stayed inside for a good portion of the day, warm and cozy with a new heating system just installed, plenty of food and TV to watch. It was the best way for a snowstorm to be. Not that I love snow, because I don't anymore. All I want is for it to be warm enough for me to go out and work in my garden. But that's beside the point.

 

Back at work, we had a steady stream of people who used those words again - 'brutal, horrible' winter. This winter has been 'so bad' they said. The snow was horrendous! It's just been awful and SO COLD. After the snow, it went back up to 40. Today, just over a week later, it's literally in the 50s outside and sunny.

 

Perspective. Why do so many people see one cold, snowy day as the defining moment for a whole season and deem an entire winter to be 'brutal and horrible' when there is no doubt in anyone's mind they've been through much worse? Can we blame the media that reports every storm these days as being 'deadly' and 'record breaking'? Or do people just have a tendency to be completely unable to see the good when the bad is so close by?

 

Today is a gorgeous day, but last week was snowing, so the winter has been 'brutal and horrible.'

 

I try to find the perspective in things, so that I'm not living in a brutal and horrible world but in a beautiful one. It makes life much easier.