I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective lately… and I think, as much as we sometimes forget that life isn’t happening to us and that we aren’t victims of life, but instead we are creating our life minute by minute, day by day, year by year… our perspective truly defines how we interpret our lives and in turn, how we feel about our lives.
Mentally, we determine how we interact with each day. It’s our reaction to life and the story we tell ourselves about what is “happening” that shapes how we interact with it and how we then “feel” about it and then identify with the feelings, which are either positive or negative… and either way, it’s a choice… our choice.
This feels a bit harsh, especially for instance, when I think about the snow storm in March and how I was in literal fight or flight survival mode for my life. But if I was still living in my old house, with Chad for example, and not living alone, I wouldn’t have experienced the storm in the same way. It wouldn’t have been a matter of survival at all based on the location of that house compared to this house and the fact that Chad has a plow truck and was plowing the streets surrounding the house and maybe more than anything, I wouldn’t have been alone. Sometimes the idea of having alone time feels like a relief – when it’s a choice – but not seeing another human for 8 days while shoveling paths of snow aimlessly, was a whole different kind of fear and isolation I’ve never experienced before.
As it turned out, I wasn’t in actual danger, but at the time, it sure felt like I was… However, if any of my fears actualized, I would have been in danger, and it would have been too late. That’s the thing about danger; you either plan ahead or you die.
Being completely snowed in my gated community had my anxiety about not being able to get out IF SOMETHING HAPPENED, kept me clinging to my shovel and digging out paths every day for my just in case emergency. This was my way of controlling the uncontrollable. Shoveling a path every day gave me purpose and allowed me to sleep at night knowing I could escape with my dogs in case something happened, something like my gas meter exploding or my house or a nearby house going up in flames or my roof started to collapse. Yes, these all seem dramatic, but they were happening all over the mountain and people and animals were trapped. It was real and it was terrifying, but I still had a choice about how I reacted to it and perceived it.
I don’t think people think about this enough and maybe I think about it all too much, but it seems to me that many people walk around complaining and miserably ranting about every little thing they can’t control and upset by how other people treat them and blame life and God and everything outside of themselves yet when you point this out to them and use the word “victim” or “negative” as a way to explain their behavior, they often have no idea what you’re talking about. They look at you like you’re crazy, as if they have no idea they behave in this way or that their behavior is negative and draining on people and society at large and because of this lack of self awareness, they rarely, if ever make any changes in their lives or in their attitude, beliefs or behavior… because then they’d actually have to take responsibility for why everything sucks for them all the time and isn’t it just so much easier blaming everything else and acting like a poor little victim and getting pity from everyone they tell their sad stories to, day in and day out? These people are exhausting and yet, they’d blame you for not being there for them.
Without anything figuratively changing in their lives, if they just chose to look at everything in a different way, from a different perspective, their lives would change dramatically. But I guess they don’t want change. Change isn’t comfortable and it demands that we look at ourselves and face truths about ourselves that we’d probably rather not, but it seems to me that it’s the only way…
Yes, there is a level of privilege that comes with this kind of thinking I guess, as I’m sure all the “unhoused” people in LA are not thinking about how if they just change their perspective on life that their circumstances would change… but I dunno, there might be a bit of truth behind this statement and how they ended up on the streets of LA in the first place and that shifting their perspective might actually change their lives. But also, I mean, they’re living in one of the most expensive cities for free. So maybe they know something we don’t. But we’re not homeless here, we’re highly developed women with goals and dreams and visions of what life has to offer us, even when our lives turned out much differently than we once had expected.
I think that’s a truth in and of itself that no-one tells us when we’re young and dreaming about our lives… that most likely, it’s not going to be the life we anticipated. For instance, when I was young, I would have NEVER believed in one million years that I wouldn’t have kids of my own and a family. That was the ONE certainty I had as a child. I didn’t have goals of being a professional blogger or graphic artist or photographer or content creator or bar and restaurant owner. Mostly because almost all of those things didn’t exist when I was a kid. I wanted to be an artist and when I was in my late teens someone told me about photoshop and so I took a class at UCLA extensions and learned the rest on my own. That was in 1996. And I decided I could make money being a digital artist and that turned into building websites and then I learned skills that ultimately didn’t exist when I was growing up in the 80s.
This is all to accentuate the fact that life doesn’t always, if ever, turn out the way we thought it would and isn’t that kind of amazing? I mean, the certainty of thinking we know what we want when we’re young only to realize we know nothing at all about how life truly is and the fear and exhilaration that also come with the uncertainty of figuring that out is a whole new dream of a future life we never even imagined. How boring would life be if there were no twists and turns and it did turn out exactly how we thought it would?
And here we are back to perspective. If I chose to think that I’m a failure at being a woman because I couldn’t get pregnant, then I would become a victim of my circumstances and live in some negative depressive state every day… And though I might always feel that emotional tug when I think about it and even swallow a lump in my throat, it doesn’t and will not define me.
The energetic level and vibration of the two very different perspectives makes for two very different people living two very different lives, don’t you think?
Japanese Life Purpose and Path says that destiny is not a final destination or one thing, but something that changes every day with each choice you make. I like to think I’m working towards my destiny every day and shaping my future now with my daily choices. I like to think that all the hard work and soul searching I’m doing now will afford my future self with some wisdom that will change lives. I like to think that I’m still on my path to becoming who I was meant to be and maybe we all are because our lives aren’t straight lines, but constant forks in roads leading us down different paths of adventure and learning. I like to think that working on my mental health as much as or more than my physical health is just as important because if a life well lived is just perspective, then I want mine to be the best version I can create ❤️ .
Happy Thursday Lovecats!
It’s finally spring here, but it’s snowing today.
Hope you are well 😊
