A Matter of Perspective

Perspective is a wonderful thing!

Every week-day morning of the school term, I get up and the morning insanity begins. A frantic combination of ‘Get up!’; ‘Brush your teeth’, ‘come on, what’s taking you so long in the bathroom? Your brother is waiting to go’, ‘concentrate on eating please, you have to leave in two minutes’, ‘Where’s your sports-bag?’, ‘Don’t forget your lunch’ …and so it goes on. If the boys aren’t out the door by 7.30am at the latest, the traffic is too heavy and they’re late for school. It’s a stressful and often frustrating process. Regardless of how organised we are, or how early we rise, it’s nearly always the same last minute rush, and [honestly] not-particularly-enjoyable process of bundling them in the car and rushing off to fight the morning traffic.

This morning, it was Dad’s turn to do the driving. After the boys had left, I sat at my desk, preparing for the day, and glanced out my window. Across the road, a family of four were in the ‘bundling them in the car’ process [their school is closer and starts later than ours]. As the three older children – all dressed up in their neat, well-pressed uniforms, neatly combed hair, clean teeth, school bags and hats in place – lined up to put their things in the car, with the father helping them, the younger sibling, dressed in a pink tutu pranced around the car and the Mum hovered about like a bumble bee, busily checking all was in place. I paused at my work and took in the scene and was amazed that from an outsider’s perspective, it all looked so beautiful. I’m very familiar with the bumble-bee Mum’s participation in the process, and could see she was just as anxious as I am each morning to get them all in and on their way on time. But, I was simultaneously surprised to realise what a special and precious time it was in the lives of that family, all together being guided towards a single purpose. The mundane morning insanity suddenly took on a whole new light and instead of a thing of stress and difficulty, became a precious gift of love and unity.

That is what perspective does for you. Taking the time to look from a different angle, to broaden the lens on life and see a bigger picture, rather than being stuck within it can make an enormous difference to our view point. 

It’s a marvellous gift; a gift to be treasured and used regularly; perhaps, a gift that could really make a difference in our world if society employed it more often.