A Chance to Gain Perspective
Coming up on 15 years ago I was shot five times with a very large caliber handgun. To say that it was the most challenging part of my existence would be the understatement of the century. The first words the doctors at UMASS Worcester spoke to my family and friends were along the lines of, we will do everything we possibly can to save him, but his injuries are so severe you should be prepared for the worst. They did not know what was keeping me alive. I was most certainly fighting for my life, and, beyond the physical wounds was guilt. Guilt that I had somehow subjected everyone I love to the pain and anguish people feel when those close to them are in such dire straits. It was those very same people that are responsible for getting me through alive. I could not let them down. After 4 months in the hospital, 13 surgeries, and another 6 months at home with nurse care I began to resurface and get back to the life and people I had never known how much I appreciated. I share this story as an example of something we all need as we navigate through our daily challenges:perspective.
We are smack dab in the depths of an incredibly challenging time, every one of us. It is not the “new normal”. It’s a chance to gain perspective. Perspective that it’s really not all that bad. Anyone can list off a number of brand new aggravations and challenges: variants, masks, mandates, lockdowns, scams, vaccines, shipping delays and on and on and on and on. But we can also list off all the good we can find: we have seen the most overwhelming outpouring of community support ever. Restaurants facing doom somehow retooled their entire operation to serve the needs of a community in lockdown, and our people lined up to support them. Our first responders, doctors and nurses had to completely change how they operate to keep us all safe, and donations of masks and food and plain old support just poured in--in many cases from the people and businesses that were struggling the most. Our hospital changed everything about how they did business, and rather than back down and stay focused on just that, they partnered with our town to keep the message positive. Remember the group of amazing people that sat down at their sewing machines and mass-produced masks? Let’s face it, every single person and business had to change everything to get through. We may not be completely out of the woods yet, but we will get there. Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, facing death and destruction, nearly everyone stepped up and did something good. In many cases, it was simply just surviving, mentally and physically. Perspective.
At this point in the pandemic we seem to have reached the one thing we can all agree on: we are sick of it! It’s bringing out some pretty sad stuff in some of us, and I firmly believe that it’s a direct result of a lack of (here’s that word again) perspective. We all need to remember the fact that not one single person or business wanted this. As recently as a few years ago nobody could have ever dreamed that someone could be upset that a restaurant operating at half staff would be subjected to unruly patrons that go out of their way to complain, even publicly, about the very people that have stuck it out to serve the rest of us. Who could possibly have imagined that someone would be complaining about not having groceries delivered to their doorstep within a couple hours? WHAT? God forbid a couple minutes get added to a commute due to a major construction project that ultimately benefits everyone. Can you even fathom complaining that a package you probably didn’t even need wasn’t delivered overnight? How about having to walk to a door of a business only to find out it was closed, and being upset that there wasn’t some grand announcement about it (seems like just yesterday the door being locked would have tipped one off that it was closed -- wouldn’t you have had to walk to the door to read a sign that said they were closed anyway?). Perspective.
We all face challenges that may seem insurmountable, but they are temporary. Every problem or inconvenience has a solution and in most cases it has to do with patience, understanding, a little compassion, determination to get through and find a path, and another word I can’t think of right now….just kidding. Perspective.
An incredibly wise and caring man and dear friend of mine, Mr. Bob (Mac) MacQuillen once said to me after I had asked about his day, “Billy, every day I wake up above the f@cking grass is a good one.” Not a day goes by that I don’t think of those words, and I repeat them to almost everyone I am greeted by. For me they are very true because of the story I shared, but they should be true to all of us because, well, you know. Perspective.
