100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren, #30

Perspective is everything.

(Photo is of me, 4th from left, and some of my nieces and nephews. Probably dressed for church.)

I must have been about 12, walking from our house, a teacherage (teacher housing), to main street in the little 1,200-person community where I spent the first 18 years of my life. I recall with uncanny clarity what the sky looked like, summer blue faded by heat. What was to my left, the abandoned old red-brick two-story house I was certain held secrets. And to my right, the tiny little worn-down apartments where people who were really, really poor lived, not just kinda’ poor like us. I remember how the air smelled, hot and full of promise for hotter. And I especially remember the epiphany that made me stop abruptly. 

“We can’t judge what we don’t know.” 

That was my 12-year old understanding, but which over time and maturity became “Perspective is everything.”

Isn’t it peculiar how countless moments in our lives go un-noticed, un-remembered, un-recorded, and then there are those moments you never forget. This was one of those for me. Maybe you recall me saying I’d never heard my mother say a bad thing about anyone, and how incredibly extraordinary that was. When I criticized someone or something, a behavior I no doubt picked up from one of my playmates as it certainly didn’t exist in our home, Mom would say, “you cannot judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins,” a statement that conjured a visual, but no understanding of its meaning. But on that warm summer morning as I walked to town, the true meaning and significance of that saying blossomed, and I have ever since been intrigued by its truth.

“…walk a mile in his moccasins” has been attributed to American Indian wisdom, but in fact it’s attribution goes back to a poem written in 1895 by Mary T. Lathrap, called “Judge Softly.” And although the poem isn’t exactly earth-moving, the “moccasins” adage certainly resonated and found traction in American culture. And now that I understand the origin, I am even more charmed by the poem’s title, “Judge Softly,” a concept I wish more of us embraced.

“Perspective” has been a central theme in the texture of my personal culture, and has helped me be less judgmental and angry, and more compassionate and understanding. I try not to get angry and criticize people who don’t believe what I believe.  I know they are who and what they are because of how they have been raised and the culture in which they live. 

We tend to be critical of individuals with beliefs and lifestyles different than ours, thinking, “What is wrong with them? Can’t they see?” But we only know what we know, and we stay in the culture that supports what we know.  For example, generational poverty. “It is so easy,” we say. “Go to school and get a job!” But when you’ve been raised in a culture where dropping out of school, and maybe doing drugs and committing crime, is the norm, that is what you know and understand – you are comfortable there. Stepping out of that is a scary, unknown place. So, you stay in the culture you understand. 

I had a funny experience recently that reminded me that being judgmental is all about perspective. I was making my bed and the sheets were so wrinkled I found myself thinking, “Gosh, maybe I’ll send them to the laundry to be washed and pressed.” And then I recalled nearly 20 years ago being incensed when someone whose house I was staying in for a weekend, said for me to be sure to take the sheets to the laundry to be washed and pressed. I remember thinking, “That’s ridiculous! Why would anyone think sheets needed to be pressed? Such a waste of money!” My perspective at the time was, that’s not how money should be spent, because I had so little money. Twenty-years later, when I have the money to pay someone to wash and iron my sheets if I want to, it sounds like a pretty nice idea. Silly, simple, but a personal reminder of how perspective shapes everything, and we need to be careful about judging others.

I occasionally give graduating seniors an upside-down map of the world, with the inscription “It’s all about perspective. Get some.” As you can see below, this different perspective changes everything. The US and Mexico look so tiny, and the Russian Federation and Canada look huge, yet we do not typically think of them that way. 

So, what I want to say to my children and grandchildren is that what something looks like all depends on where you are standing. Don't be critical or judgmental of people who believe differently from you, because you have not lived their life and you do not have their perspective.

Perspective is everything.