It's All About Perspective

The other night I had a great conversation with my roommate. I wanted to go on a drive to clear my head and just talk, so my roommate tagged along. I felt like my thoughts were all over the place, but overall I was frustrated and felt like I was struggling. I spit out all my thoughts in a haphazard manner. After I explained it all, I had no idea if it any of it made any sense at all, but simply just getting it all off my chest and sharing with someone was relieving.

What my roommate said after I said how I felt stunned me in the moment and nearly had me in tears. She asked, “can I tell you what I think about you?” She proceeded to list off numerous things such as, “I see how you are so studious and get good grades. I see how you care so much about people and are always so thoughtful of others. You help Jeremy a lot. You help your family a lot. You are always thinking of how to help others. You are good about saving money at the grocery store.” She listed off many things, that was just part of what she said. I was nearly in tears when listening to what she was saying to me.

I was speechless at what she said; mostly because I didn’t see many of those things in myself. I don’t always see myself as studious. Sometimes I get good grades. Last fall semester I didn’t do as well in my classes as I had hoped. In one of my classes in particular I was just trying to keep my head above water and simply pass the class. I care a lot about people and try to be thoughtful and help my friends and family whenever I can, but sometimes I end up getting hurt because of how much I care. There are times when I wish I didn’t care so much. It seemed like for each thing she said I could think of a counterargument of how I didn’t think it was true.

This conversation left me thinking all about perspective and how my perspective varied so much from that of my roommate’s. Her perspective was from the outside looking in at my life and the little moments that make up my life. My perspective is from the inside with a thousand thoughts a minute gets clouded so easily by negative thoughts, unnecessary things, &  focusing on my challenges/trials. I can twist ideas in my head to make it seem worse or harder. I overthink things often. When I do those things, my perspective gets skewed and I don’t see things as they truly are. 

I know what I can become and what I am capable of, so I get frustrated when I am not having success and not achieving what I want to. I've been working more on taking a step back to view things as they really are and "fix" my perspective when it gets clouded because of frustration or whatever it is. "When you look at a field of dandelions, you can either see a hundred weeds, or a thousand wishes." Perspective changes everything and can make a world of difference.