Applications of Shifting Perspective
After reading Wallace's This is Water, I was inspired to follow what he said in his speech. I took it upon myself to shift my perspective so that I thought about others first, before I immediately jumped to conclusions about something. These are some events that happened this Friday.
1:14 pm: We were supposed to be dismissed down to the gym for the pep rally, but for some reason my 6th hour teacher kept rambling on even after the bell rang. After a minute, I piped up and asked "Madame, le cloche a sonné, est-ce que nous pouvons partir maintenant?" This translates to, "Miss, the bell has rung, can we leave now?" And to that she told us no, you need to wait for the announcements to dismiss us. Five minutes go by and we had still not heard an announcement, so she checked the hallways and saw that all the classrooms were empty. Since I chose to not immediately judge for her not letting us leave when the bell rang, I realized that for most of the assemblies prior, the office would dismiss us by hallway, and this led me to realize that she had no malicious intent, she was just misled. I didn't get annoyed, but instead I chose not to get worked up over something so trivial.
2:15 pm: This is where I learnt that shifting your perspective doesn't only have to be applied to negative situations. Earlier this week, one of my friends auditioned for the A Capella club here at Troy High, but she was bummed out because she thought that her audition didn't go well. Today, after school, the list of people who got in were released, and to her surprise, she got in! When she found out she got in, she had the biggest smile on her face. I put myself in her position and was able to truly appreciate how happy and ecstatic she must have been. You know that feeling when something good happens to someone and you feel happy for them, but its just that you are happy for them? Nothing more? This time, I felt just as she felt, and having that genuine emotion is such a good feeling.
1:14 pm: We were supposed to be dismissed down to the gym for the pep rally, but for some reason my 6th hour teacher kept rambling on even after the bell rang. After a minute, I piped up and asked "Madame, le cloche a sonné, est-ce que nous pouvons partir maintenant?" This translates to, "Miss, the bell has rung, can we leave now?" And to that she told us no, you need to wait for the announcements to dismiss us. Five minutes go by and we had still not heard an announcement, so she checked the hallways and saw that all the classrooms were empty. Since I chose to not immediately judge for her not letting us leave when the bell rang, I realized that for most of the assemblies prior, the office would dismiss us by hallway, and this led me to realize that she had no malicious intent, she was just misled. I didn't get annoyed, but instead I chose not to get worked up over something so trivial.
2:15 pm: This is where I learnt that shifting your perspective doesn't only have to be applied to negative situations. Earlier this week, one of my friends auditioned for the A Capella club here at Troy High, but she was bummed out because she thought that her audition didn't go well. Today, after school, the list of people who got in were released, and to her surprise, she got in! When she found out she got in, she had the biggest smile on her face. I put myself in her position and was able to truly appreciate how happy and ecstatic she must have been. You know that feeling when something good happens to someone and you feel happy for them, but its just that you are happy for them? Nothing more? This time, I felt just as she felt, and having that genuine emotion is such a good feeling.
The way you described your feelings on two different situations corresponds to how imprecise we could all be. Sometimes what we see happening around us, would make us assumably conclude, sometimes incorrectly. This is something that people always encountered but overlooked. Thanks for bringing it up Varun.
ReplyDeleteHey Varun. I liked the way you linked the things that we learned in a discussion to your real-life situations. I think it's definitely very important to have the ability to shift perspective as that is what Wallace calls true freedom. You also connected it with a teacher's perspective and a friend's perspective. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteThe way that you decided to think about others emotions and put yourself in their shoes was insightful, and really helped to get an inside perspective on what the real life application of his ideas could do. I feel like putting these simple perspective shifts into our daily lives could really change a lot.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this post just kinda confirmed that we tend to look at things from other people’s perspective more, and quicker, if those people are closer to us. If a friend is having a bad, you can understand and you try to put yourself on his/her shoes. In your, Varun’s, case, “her” shoes. This shows that we should try to look at the perspective of more unfamiliar people, and this might even actually lead more friendships.
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