The greatest lesson I have learned in life so far is courtesy of my dad. Growing up I felt I had trouble fitting in, I often came home from school crying because I had felt wronged in some way. My mom would always instantly take my side, but my dad would always ask things like “well what did they say”, or “what did they do”. For the longest time I just thought it was because my dad didn’t care about how I felt, but one day he told me why he had always approached those situations with those questions; he said to me, “life is all about your perspective, the way that you see the world will make all the difference in your life”.
Suddenly, I was seeing my life in a whole new light. Things that once made me tremendously upset, were now rolling off my back. When I would find myself being left out of group hangouts, instead of immediately becoming angry, I tried to change my outlook and view it as an opportunity to grow and find new friends. Soon enough I was living my life by the motto, IT’S ALL ABOUT PERSPECTIVE.
Now, this isn’t to say that I haven’t had trouble implementing this daily. Just like anything else, changing your mindset takes time. It took me until my sophomore year of college to FULLY grasp the concept of perspective. Everyone is going to have their own view point, and it is influenced by their life experience, but the one universal aspect is that we are in control of our own perspective.
We have control over if we view an event as a catastrophic blow to our lives, or if we view it as an opportunity to learn and grow. But like I said… this takes TIME, and some events really are just catastrophic, but taking a moment to step back and assess it from a different angle allows us to choose how we want to view and approach it as we move forward.
Losing my mom at 21 was never part of my life plan, and heck so far it has been one of the worst things that has happened to me. I took the time to feel her loss as the upheaval it was, but then I started to come out of it.
I started to meet other people who had lost parents and I started to change my perspective. While I miss my mother daily, and I will never stop missing her, that experience has allowed me to meet new people and learn from others. I had to take a lot of time to change my perspective and see that.
It’s hard, and it will continue to be hard, but it is a matter of deciding if you want to live your life looking at the glass half full or half empty. Personally, I’d like to keep that glass half full.
Peace Out Girl Scout,
Giulia