The power of perspective

“One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before.”

Anne Rice

On February 19th, 2016, when you were still seven weeks from being born, I thought was going to die.  It was a sensation I had never felt before, and even thinking about it now haunts me.  

The sensation was debilitating. Completely overwhelming my body and mind.  I could feel my heart beat through every part of my body.   Simultaneously crushing my chest inward, while seemingly being ripped out of it. It caused me to be delirious. My mind was in full tailspin, circling uncontrollably.  

For someone who has never been afraid of dying, I was beyond terrified.  In bed, I lied completely and utterly still to try to calm myself.

Let's rewind to weeks prior, where I had first started feeling "heart palpitations."  I didn't really know what they were, but I had been having light chest pains.  Mind you, I am not a "healthy person."  I am significantly overweight and previously diagnosed with both high blood pressure and high cholesterol.  And while the chest pains were concerning, they were often short lived, non-severe, and given everything that was happening in life at the time, they were inconveniently timed.  I told myself that there wasn't enough time to worry about this with everything happening at work, trying to prepare for what became a maddening move, and also managing the deceptively ambiguous "parenthood preparation."

Spoiler alert if/when you ever become a parent: preparing for parenthood is like trying to do a "color-by-numbers" piece of art but being told the picture will be completely ruined if you pick the wrong hue of blue. But the instructions just say "blue" and then you are handed the below:

View fullsize

"Blue"

Oh yeah. And you don't even know what you are coloring... and there are a thousand people making a case for each damn crayon. And then you have to do the same thing for every other color. It's so much fun.

Fast-forward back to Friday, February 19th. I walk out of one of the most infuriating meetings of my career, and then the above sensation starts.  Yes, this started at work.  I knew I was upset, I knew that my heart was racing, I knew I couldn't focus.  And while I had never felt heart palpitations of this intensity in the past, it was always short-lived, so I did what any stupid person would do: nothing.  It only got worse as the the afternoon turned to evening and only partially subsided about eight hours after that meeting.

The next day, your mom and I started out early, looking for a place to live due to the unexpected move I previously mentioned.  And after hours of visiting places and having absolutely no luck, my heart began to race again.

That afternoon we had planned to go to a baby class (all about how to take care of you!).  We had a lengthy discussion that it might be best for me to go home and rest given what had happened the day before, but this class was important.  We ended up going to the class and when we walked in, the nurse/teacher smiled cheek-to-cheek and said "I'm so glad you guys are here, I know you guys have a lot going on with your move."

Her statement made me pause.

Because while she somehow knew that the timing of the class wasn't as convenient as it seemed when we signed up weeks before, she vocalized our prioritization of why we were there that day.

I replied with appreciation and let her know that despite what was going on with the move (and what she didn't know had happened at work), there was nothing more important than our family and being at that class, learning to be good parents, was the only thing that mattered in that moment.

This might not seem powerful to you.  You are probably thinking, "...you didn't already know that?" But the truth is, while I knew it, I had lost sight of it.  And until that moment, I was lost in the meaningless and trivial.

But the second my perspective shifted back to what is most important to me in life, my chest pains stopped.  It was like someone flipped a switch and everything changed.  The stress and anxiety that had plagued me for the previous two days ceased.  And to think, all it took was some perspective.

As much as I wish it wouldn't, at some point life is going to get rough.  And in those moments, I would implore you seek perspective.  Whether it is understanding a new perspective, or in my case, remembering an old one, understanding an experience's relationship to your values and beliefs can completely shift your interpretation of said experience.  Seemingly monumental objects can become minuscule and vice versa. Seemingly insurmountable odds can become attainable. 

And I'll end this by reminding you that while you might perceive this to be easy and unnecessary, it is entirely too easy to lose your perspective.  Because while I was fine by that Saturday night, the following Monday morning I was visiting the emergency room.  But that is a story for another day.

Racisms effect on mindset

"People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you."

Samuel L. Jackson

Previously, I wrote about the reality of racism.  The post, like the subject of racism itself, comes across as depressing, sad, and frustrating.  After all, a reality that exists where you will be treated differently due to something that is completely outside of your control is a difficult pill to swallow.  But one thing that I alluded to in my previous post is what I think is the worst part of racism, and that is that in all of the examples I mentioned, there is no actual evidence of racism.  It's not like someone attacked me, no one yelled racial slurs at me, nothing actually happened.

It is the part of racism that I personally struggle with the most.  Significant physical harm aside, I would much rather people be overtly racist against me.  Why? Because then I know where they stand and it provides me with information to understand how I should proceed in that specific situation.  Without that knowledge, I am left wondering if something happened because of racism or a hundred other reasons.  And maybe the other hundred possible reasons are legitimate. But if it is racism, it is never legitimate, and something needs to be said or done.  

The challenge is that without an racial slur being said, without an ignorant rant taking place, how am I supposed to know if I should react, take a stand or prepare myself? That curiosity, that wonder, is what has created my own internal struggle.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but imagine you were allergic to peanuts and living in a word that had no ingredient labels and no ability to check if someone cooked using peanuts.  

Imagine you discovered this allergy was a problem because you ate a single peanut.  Now, while that single peanut didn't cause you a significant amount of harm, you experienced enough to know it isn't something you want to mess with, especially not in large quantities.  Pushing further, you hear stories, real stories, of other people with peanut allergies.  These people ended up eating a whole bag of peanuts and experienced terrible consequences, sometimes even fatally. 

Knowing that you and peanuts aren't going to get along, you also know that peanuts exist and even worse, you know that there are lots of companies who use peanuts to make foods, but never disclose it.  

So one day you decide to sit down for lunch and immediately afterwards, you feel the exact discomfort you felt the first time you tried that single peanut.  The restaurant claimed to be peanut free, so you thought you were completely safe.  That is, until you felt that discomfort. You ask the server if there are any peanuts in the food and they say "no, of course not, we are a peanut free establishment." But you know what you are feeling.  You start to think about it more, and then more, and then you realize, well... maybe the chicken just wasn't cooked fully through or maybe it was my drink? Then you go back to that feeling. You know what you are feeling. But then you go back to the idea that it could have been anything... are you really going to call the server a liar without any actual evidence?  Maybe you want to let it go, after all you only experienced a little discomfort, and again it could be anything, so how can you do anything besides letting it go?  But you still felt something, so in the spirit of self-preservation, you just decide to stay away from that restaurant (and hope that no one else with a peanut allergy eats there after you).

So now you are avoiding the restaurant... what's next? Well, you starting thinking maybe it is the type of restaurant, not just that specific one.  You start avoiding certain foods that you think have a higher possibility of peanuts, you start changing your lifestyle to try to make sure that you don't have to experience the pain of your allergy.

Meanwhile, you watch everyone without a peanut allergy trying all sorts of things you would never even dream of trying.  So now you are stuck in a position where, for no reason other than something you were born with, you are afraid to taste certain foods, even if that fear is misattributed to uncooked chicken.  And even worse, every time you feel the possible effects of your allergy (because it is impossible to completely avoid), you can never be sure if it was because of your allergy or because of something else.

In this example, food is to peanuts what everything is to racism. Meaning, you're not just worried about one specific part of your life, racism can effect everything.  It can be a school application, a job opportunity, the ability to build a clock or even your presence in a store.  Hell, it could be your ability to be served food.

I will say upfront that I don't think most people are outright racist, but I do think that racial bias is a spectrum that most people sit on.  People might not even know they are leaning one way vs. another because of racial bias, but they very well might be.  And if they don't even know, how would you?

This. This is my curiosity.  This is my wonder. To me, it is the knowledge that something exists that could be negatively affecting me that persistently gnaws away.  It is a depressing, demoralizing reality. And when I let it, it had the ability to consume the way I thought.  That is my struggle.

And much like life, those struggling feelings ebb and flow, fading from when I feel "safe" from racism, and then immediately reemerging the second I might have experienced racism. 

This is the point of the story where I wish I had a solution for you.  This is the point of the story when I wish I could say that I can protect you from this. But the harsh reality is that it will likely be a struggle that you also feel.

My advice is knowing that while this struggle can consume your thoughts in the worst way possible, it doesn't have to.  My current approach is to assume the best of people, assuming that I am not a victim of racism until proven otherwise.  I tell myself I'm not a victim even when I know probably am.  To me, the second that I let the possibility and fear of racism dictate my life experience, they have won, and the hell I am going to let that happen.  In the most serious way possible, whenever I think about this subject, I always end up in a place where I am basically having a Braveheart moment. 

The last thing I will say is that the moment that questionable racism turns into overt racism, the game changes.  At that point, fight back in the most appropriate way possible. I'll help.

The danger of pride

"Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling."

Adrienne Rich

Pride is generally seen with a positive connotation for most people.  I see it as a tool whose role can be just as negative as it can be positive.

The positive role it serves stems from the motivation it can bring to create/do things that you are proud of, and end satisfaction of accomplishing those very things.  This is very important and rarely will I fault anyone for finding ways to motivate themselves to do better, be better, or strive for better lives.  The positive role can be expanded on quite a bit, but for the purpose of this post, I want to focus on the danger that goes along with pride because I don't feel like it is talked about enough.

To me, pride it innately personal.  The things I am proud of I see as a reflection of myself; a reflection of the standards I carry as a person.  The people I am proud of are the people that live up to my standards.  Standards are a reflection of your own values, ethics, morals, philosophy and perspectives and ultimately set the bar for how you judge what is 'good enough.'  Because these are all reflections of what you think, they are naturally not necessarily a reflection of what other people think -- and this is where things get tricky.

The negative role that pride plays in society stems from the defensiveness that surfaces when your pride is hurt or questioned.  Most people have established their standards from experiences throughout their lives, and their standards can change as they experience new things.  Because of this, almost everyone's standards are different, and almost everyone thinks their standards are right -- at least in the moment they are questioned.  Either his standards are too narrow-minded or her's are too tolerant.  This type of thinking perpetuates people to lose one-selves humility, and pass into a sense of superiority.  "You think you're better than me?"

The honest truth is, when your livelihood is questioned, when your values are questioned, you are most likely going to react, and that reaction might or might not be rational.  But here is the thing: in the same way that you don't like your standards questioned, they aren't going to like theirs questioned when you react.

When your pride is hurt or questioned, take a second and think: is anything you are about to do (or not do) going to change what you think of yourself or what they think of themselves? Will your reaction help? Are you really "defending your honor" or are you sinking to their level?  I do think that sometimes it is worth it to fight for what you believe in because it can make a difference. I just urge you to ask yourself if it is a fight you can win -- and really think about what winning really is.

Pride can be an invaluable tool that motivates and amplifies satisfaction, but I have seen almost as many times, if not more, it forces irrational reactions.  Understand when to push forward and when to pull back -- use it as a tool rather than boundary.