The perspective I refer to in the title is time. If you wait long enough after a difficult moment, the lemons that life seems to have given you can turn out to be diamonds.
There is a parable of an old farmer whose only horse ran away. The nearby villagers consoled him. “What bad luck,” they said. “Good luck, bad luck,” replied the farmer. “Who knows?“
The farmer’s horse returned the following week, bringing with it tens of wild horses, which the farmer’s son was able to corral. The villagers came to celebrate with the farmer. “What good luck,” they said. “Good luck, bad luck,” replied the farmer. “Who knows?“
The next day the farmer’s son broke his leg when he fell from one of the wild horses he was trying to break in. The villagers came to console him. “What bad luck,” they said. “Good luck, bad luck,” replied the farmer. “Who knows?“
The next week the lord of land came by demanding all able bodied men join his army to fight in a far off land. The villagers were distraught from their own loss but came to celebrate the farmer still had his son with him. “You’re so lucky to have your son here,” they said. “Good luck, bad luck,” replied the farmer. “Who knows?“
All of us can look back on our lives and recall being sad or angry when a moment didn’t go as we wanted, only to see a benefit when enough time has passed. Expectation management can be difficult when we really want, or really need things to pan out a certain way. Below I share a handful of my own examples, to get you started on thinking about your own, if you wish.
In my final year at school I failed to achieve the grades needed for the biotechnology course I wanted at college. I ended up selecting chemistry. I spoke with students of the biotechnology course once I arrived at college, and chemistry proved to be was more within my capabilities. It gave me time to enjoy extracurricular activities I’d have otherwise missed: horse riding, parachute jumping, tai chi, ballroom dancing. I would never have tried the first two and I’m glad I had the experience. I pursued the latter two after leaving college, and ended up forming friendships through them that carry me to this day.
On my first ever scuba diving vacation I was buddied with a guy who went through his oxygen tank at twice the rate I did. I was so upset that my dives were so short I wrote about it in my dive log, which he picked up and read because he thought it was his. [Everyone has a “don’t be a dick!” story, and this was one of mine.] The following day my buddy and I were diving together and he was out of air after 25 minutes, so we surfaced… into a pod of dolphins. We played with them for about 20 minutes and then they were gone. If our dive duration had been determined by my capacity rather than his I’d have missed one of the most magical and unexpected experiences of my life.
I chose to live in Australia for a time. The lease was up at my rental and I needed a roof over my head for a couple of weeks before another job started. I phoned friend I had stayed with several years before; she had said I could stay with her if I ever needed. This time she said, “no.” I was stuck. In a panic I called an Aussie I had had worked with fleetingly. I didn’t know him well but asked if he’d let me stay – I’d pay him rent – just for a week or two. I ended up with him for six months, and over the past twenty years have I flown to his small wedding in Australia, he and his wife flew to my small wedding in the USA, and we remain the best of friends. I might never had got to know him.
A sense of perspective is good when events are annoying, but the harder a moment hits us, the harder it can be to look beyond it. When I’m feeling particularly low I get pissed off when people say ‘time heals all wounds.’ I want to snap back, “time heals nothing!” During the harder moments I don’t want to heal, I just want to sit and stew in my own misery. I can’t say it serves me to do so, and yet I feel it is what I need sometimes. Only one person has ever said something that didn’t cause such a visceral response. This dear friend of mine said, “time doesn’t heal any wounds, but it does provide us with an opportunity to create a new normal.”
