This week, my boyfriend and I had a “lively discussion”
about, in the broadest sense, perspective. A friend came to me to dish about
some heavy stuff she’d been dealing with lately, looking for some comfort and reassurance
I’m sure. At first, I felt aggravated- having to hand out my sympathy to
someone whose troubles, at the surface level, had expired about a year ago
(relationship problems, if you couldn’t guess). Our friends flock to her side at
any sign that she couldn’t bear to see him out in public after their brief love
affair had ended, showing emotional evidence that she wasn’t yet over what went
down. I continue to comfort her a year later, but my patience is running thing-
as is my boyfriend’s after listening to me complain about hearing the details
of her heartache.
If you’re wondering why I haven’t left this chick in the
dust after all these months of listening to her sobbing over the same guy, I’ll
tell you that I ask myself the same question. But I justify my continual
support by reminding myself that the root of her troubles has very little to do
with the ending of her relationship with that gentleman and more to do with the
relationship she has with herself. Let me make it clear- I am not a psychologist,
nor am I a certified “love doctor” or anything of that sort. I come to the
conclusions I do based on various information and environmental/social cues I
pick up on and heavily read into.
I could tell by the things she said, the way she said them,
the manner in which she carried herself and her body language, I picked up on
all these things right when I met her. Her story- where she’s been, what she’s
seen, what she’d done, etc.- is the reason she is how she is, the reason she is
who she is. It’s really easy to
attribute people’s behaviors to things that justify your impression of them
(this is referred to as “confirmation bias” in psychology) but more often than
not, those assumptions and explanations aren’t always accurate. I may know of what this girl has been through, and knowing this will help me
better understand why she behaves and
thinks the way she does, but that’s about all I can do. I can listen to her
stories, I can listen to her perspective, I can follow her intellectual map
from thought to thought to understand how she got from A to B, but her
experiences and perspective are ultimately her own.
The “lively discussion” that I mentioned earlier was sparked
because I explained this to my boyfriend and he expressed some disapproval of
her feeling upset about what she was upset about. He was annoyed that someone
could be so clueless to many of the harsh realities that exist for people, much
more daunting than that of a broken heart. His sympathy for someone who’s
seemingly biggest issue was about some guy who dumped her was dwindling quickly
and his patience was running thin. I tried my best to justify her actions, but
my words weren’t coming out right. So I cut the psych-terms out of the
conversation and put it as simply as this: “Her perspective is all she knows.”
By this, I don’t mean that she’s an ignorant human being who
lacks any remote idea of what other people have been through and have seen.
What I mean is that she can spend all day reading about someone else’s
perspective, their story, their journey, etc. But at the end of the day, she,
and most of us, make and act on decisions based on what we know to be true, what we
have personally experienced, what we grew
up practicing. This isn’t to say that there isn’t room to grow and develop- I
encourage that quite a bit. But she shouldn’t be criticized for feeling the way
she does and thinking the way she does just because it’s different from someone
else. The elements that go into the process of formulating opinions and
thoughts and ideas, and this goes for everyone, is entirely an independent
experience and is specifically tailored to each individual. I think the sooner
we all realize that instead of trying to convince people why they’re wrong and
why we’re right, the more accepting of a society we’ll become.
Thanks for listening to my rant about my intellectual
adventure into perspective! Until next time!
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