What makes life a happy one? I'm not sure I know the answer to that. Is a happy life one absent of sorrow and sadness, or one lived in spite of sorrow and sadness? Is it based on checking off a list of "what makes man happy" and once it's complete you feel it? Can true happiness be achieved only after steps, or can the steps themselves bring joy? Is happiness given, achieved, or just made?
When I was a boy, I would have told you happiness is luck of the draw. Either you have it or you don't. And I would have told you I had been passed over for that team. I was the angry, depressed, entitled kid that felt the world was just being cruel. I felt like it owed me happiness, but never really gave it. I kept hoping that one day, I would wake up and everything would just be made right. I didn't know what "made right" looked like, but I hoped whatever it was, it would happen without any effort on my part. After all, I was owed that, right?
Following years of this attitude, I realized (resentfully) this would never happen. After a few more years of feeling cheated, I got sick of feeling like garbage. I decided I wanted to feel happy. I had learned nobody was going to give me that, so I decided to take it. If you ask me today at what point in my life I made this decision, I'd have to answer I'm not sure. Looking back, it seems more like a gradual shift rather than an instant, but then again, it feels like it was a conscious choice all in a moment. Regardless, I learned a few things that changed my perspective, the first of which is that perspective exists.
When pilots fly, sometimes they wind up in a thick cloud. At times, these clouds can shroud everything from the pilot's view. We often forget how much we rely on sight to orient ourselves in the world. When everything looks the same and you can't tell by looking what way is up or down, vertigo can set in. This can make the pilot feel like they're upside down when really, they are right-side up. The pilot now has two perspectives. Their body telling them they are facing one way, and the flight instruments telling them they are facing another. Both can't be right, so the pilot must choose what perspective to believe. But it's not enough just to believe the perspective, the pilot must act on it.
If the pilot decides to believe the body, they may choose to flip the plane to right themselves and find that doesn't feel correct either. The only way to cure the vertigo is to choose a direction and fly towards it, up or down. Regardless of which they choose, the vertigo will shortly end. Either they will break through the clouds and find they chose up, or they will break through the clouds and crash into the ground.
If the pilot chooses to believe the instruments, they must decide to follow what the instruments say. If it says the airplane is flying straight and level, the pilot must accept that and fly the plane accordingly. If it says pull up, the pilot must pull up even if they feel up isn't where the instrument says up is.
So too must we choose our perspectives. The voice in your head might be telling you how you never do anything right, but your test scores show you 80% of your answers right. 80% is 80% more than never being right. So, both perspectives can't be telling the truth. One is screaming at you that you are a loser. The other is gently telling you to go easy on yourself. You are doing so much better than you think.
All too often in my life, I have gotten stuck in thinking things were one way and only one way. I forget to take the time to step back and realize my current perspective isn't the only one out there. Once I do though, the entire world has new possibilities that used to be hidden just out of view.
If you only take one thing from reading this, let it be the following. Things are not always as they look, but if we don't look, things will always be the same. when you take time to change your perspective, you take time to change your world.
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