On Perspective
I may, or may not, have a ticking time bomb inside my head.
My mother started showing signs of early onset dementia in her mid-forties, could no longer live alone by her early fifties, and passed away in an assisted living facility at 59. Her body was healthy, save for her brain, so the final stage was more prolonged for her than most other hospice patients. We received many “this is the end” calls from the staff and would gather at her bedside for a few hours to be there for her and for each other. Eventually, they were correct and her odyssey came mercifully to an end.
My maternal grandmother also died in her fifties, prefaced by a swift mental decline. I’m not a neurologist nor a betting man, but I’m not thrilled with the odds that I pass away peacefully in my sleep after a robust game of Scrabble with my great-grandchildren.
Having reflected on this slowly but surely over the past seven years, I think there were two separate paths I could have taken:
Develop a guiding sense of perspective that underscores the value of each passing day.
Develop crushing, all-encompassing anxiety about what fate awaits me and what my final days will look like.
I don’t recall making the conscious choice for perspective rather than anxiety but I’m incredibly grateful for ending up on that side of things. I’m also incredibly grateful for the selflessness and dedication demonstrated throughout the final years of my mom’s life by the three most resilient people that I know: my wife, my sister, and my dad.
While I can’t speak to how one proactively avoids the debilitating path, I do have a suggestion for how best to use perspective to enrich and enhance your life on a daily basis.
I can’t think of much advice that is less helpful during trying times than someone reminding you how, in the grand scheme of things, what’s happening isn’t really that big of a deal. Like so many facets of life, how you decide to frame things makes a tremendous difference. Rather than “there are a shitload of people who have it way worse than me” (which is undeniably a true statement), I try to look at things from the standpoint of “I did X, which was way more difficult/draining so I know for a fact that I can make it through this.” Using my mom’s dementia as an example, it looks like this:
Useful frame: “I successfully advocated for my mom to get a spot at an assisted living facility so I can probably have the uncomfortable conversation with my team member who isn’t performing up to expectations”.
Less useful frame: “The shit is really hitting the fan at work but at least I don’t have Alzheimer’s yet”.
People are so much more resilient than they give themselves credit for.
I encourage you to flex your perspective muscle by reflecting and giving yourself credit for the times when you demonstrated incredible resilience. Realize that the well of strength you drew upon during those times is always available. The quality of the stories you tell yourself about the meaning of what happens to you is critically important. Make a conscious choice to tell yourself an empowering story rather than a limiting one.
Take 15 minutes and make a list of the hardest things you’ve ever done. Include accomplishments as well as challenges from school, at work, and in your personal life. DO NOT sell yourself short – just making it through certain circumstances in one piece counts.
Many of the things on your list will be setbacks rather than triumphs and that is good. Counter-intuitively, those can actually be more useful than your greatest hits. Reflecting on the grit you relied on to make it through past valleys can serve as a powerful reminder that you have what it takes to weather whatever storm is brewing at the moment.
And don’t forget for a second that all of those things were way harder than shredding your DadBod to pieces will be.
Phew. This post was a little more touchy-feely than I’m accustomed to, so let me balance things out:
Fuck your DadBod. It’s a smarmy, self-satisfied bastard and it knows its days are numbered.