Brave New Kitty

It’s probably human nature to globalize when you’re feeling bad. You know what I mean: when you go through a break up, you think you’ll never be loved again. Or when you’re job hunting and don’t find something right away, to feel that you’re never going to be successful. Or when you have a disagreement with a friend, to assume the friendship is over.

Usually it takes coming out the other side of a crisis–whatever it may be–to gain perspective about it. When people (people like me, anyway) are going through things they can’t see the end of, they panic. Not necessarily in a loud, external fashion, but internally, with thoughts like, I’ll never find anyone who loves me or I’ll never feel good about myself again. It isn’t until the crisis has passed that we’re able to step back and think, how silly I was to think that was going to last forever! And this is true not just for the major emotional hits, but for myriad tiny ways we react to situations. In fact, the emotions we tend to deem as innocuous might be the most important because they encompass the bulk of our day-to-day emotional life. Being able to look at “routine” emotions might be helpful when dealing with the bigger ones when they come along.

I realized this recently when I emerged out the other side of a minor emotional crisis. So minor, in fact, that I hadn’t noticed how it was wearing on me day after day–for a couple of years! It was only when it had passed that I realized how I had been seeing myself in a way that was completely inaccurate. I’d globalized and come to conclusions that were based much more on my anxiety than on reality. Through this–and probably because it was a small thing, so I didn’t have big emotions distracting me–I began to think about perspective, about how important it is to try to maintain a realistic view about myself and about what’s going on in my life.

I think I could frame my entire healing curve as an ever-increasing gaining of perspective: I’m not bad. I’m not less-than. I’m not unlovable. And up from there. For me, gaining perspective has been one long lesson of not immediately thinking the worst about myself. This attitude is so deeply ingrained that it took me awhile to realize it’s there, coloring my view and distorting my perspective about situations large and small. But just knowing that it’s there is helpful in gaining perspective. Since I figured this out, growth has largely been a matter of ever-deeper understanding of this filter through which I see the world. There are others, but this is the main one.

Not everybody has my issues, but everybody does have “self filters” through which they view the world. The closer those filters match reality, the better we’re going to feel about everything. That’s what gaining perspective is: matching your personal view with reality.

Now I realize “reality” is a vague word that can mean a lot of different things, so it needs a more precise description. By “reality,” I mean emotional reality. That is, understanding how your emotions color your worldview and being able to identify what’s accurate in your feelings and what is not. For example, if you have an argument with your partner, are you able to objectively determine which parts of it you are responsible for and which you aren’t? At first, few of us are; we are too angry or preoccupied with proving our point to consider our part. But after awhile, after tempers calm and the heat of battle passes, we start to look at the situation differently. Maybe I did overreact a little. Maybe I’m sensitive about that issue because of my past. Maybe he really didn’t mean it the way I thought he did. Armed with a new perspective, we extend the olive branch, ready to make peace. And our partner is ready, too, or will be shortly.

The point is that when we gain perspective, we gain serenity. Perspective is important for a sense of well-being. The sooner you can gain perspective and the longer you can maintain it, the better off you’ll be. So why not just try to have that perspective all the time? We don’t need to wait until we’re old and have seen it all and done it all. We can learn from the elderly and adapt their circumspect view of life right now, today. We can learn to listen to the voices of calm and reason and let them override our less dependable emotional utterings.

I’m not saying emotions aren’t important. They’re crucial. But there’s a difference between having your emotions and your emotions having you. The better we know ourselves and the better we understand how our emotions affect our view of reality, the more able we’ll be to apply our emotional energy to the things that really matter, how we want to, when we want to.

Everything resolves itself eventually, and we come out the other side, usually stronger, usually wiser. And I believe this is true even beyond death. Everything is going to be alright, no matter what. Once you understand this, it becomes truly possible to squeeze the most out of every moment.