Miguel from Think Happy Thoughts asked a series of great questions and I’ll answer them in this post.

Perspectivism is a wonderful tool that can be applied in any situation you happen to be in, but it isn’t always easy to use. A couple of days ago I caught myself yelling at this van that pulled out in front of me. I was cruising on my way to work and this big white van was blocking my path, driving all slow. My hands were waving and I was pointing, but the man driving the van didn’t even notice me. His perspective was calm and blissfully ignorant. My perspective was irritated and angry. I saw life from my eyes and he couldn’t see what irritated me. That’s when perspectivism kicked in. Just because I wouldn’t have made the same decision by not pulling out in front of another driver, I understood that he didn’t view the situation like I did. Maybe his personality is more relaxed and his job doesn’t have specific time specifications that force him to rush, or maybe like a wise person he leaves ten minutes earlier than I usually do so he can take his time to get to his destination. He doesn’t see my dilemma because he isn’t aware of who he pulled in front of. I could have honked my horn and flashed my lights so he would become aware of me, but I couldn’t do that because he didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t pull out in front of me causing me to slam on my brakes. He drove within all the laws and he was actually driving the speed limit. Although there seems to be an unwritten law within this community that you can go about 5-10 miles over the speed limit I can’t fault this guy for driving slow and safe.

Allowing myself to see all these possibilities helped calm me down. I knew that opening my mind to the myriad of viewpoints would allow me to let go of my anger. Miguel asked me four questions and I split them up and answered them each individually.

1. “How can I develop the skill of seeing situations from different perspectives more often?

Use your feelings as a trigger. Our feelings are always telling us how we are thinking. When I got irritated at the man in the white van I began to wonder why. That’s when I began the internal search for what this white van was doing to cause me such pain. I registered these emotions then began to use perspectivism to open my thoughts to other possibilities that would ease my suffering.

2. What should I do next after I have considered a number of angles?

After reviewing all the angles that the situation has to offer, that’s when you have to pick the angle that you feel fits best with your emotions and the situation or decide that you don’t have enough information to make a quality decision. I decided to pick the option of “blissfully ignorant driver.” It made the most sense and it calmed me down so I could relax and accept that the only way that I could go faster was when I had to turn right and the street opened into two lanes. Once I accepted my fate my anger dissipated and I actually enjoyed the short distance to my right turn.

3. What do I do after I have understood the validity of even contradictory perspectives?

I’ve never really thought about this before because I almost always choose the perspective that makes me feel better. I’ve had an acquaintance choose to take a drug and they ended up overdosing and dying.

I could look at it from the angle that they must have been suffering so intensely that they needed to dull the pain
or I could see them as weak and that they couldn’t stop something that they knew was destroying their life. I could even step back further and realize that I just don’t know the right perspective.

When faced with two contradictory perspectives, the person should try to accept that neither one is right or wrong. Drugs can do awful things, but to make a sweeping assumption that all drugs are bad doesn’t allow you to realize how many millions of people need them to cure ailments, dull pain, and improve their lives.

I believe we need to accept the contradictory perspectives and decide that they both have legitimacy. This leads to the next question of dealing with neutral feelings

4. When I engage in understanding the various perspectives I then start to feel….rather neutral about everything. I stop caring about what happens. This does not seem to be a very adaptive consequence. How can I use perspectivism to enjoy my life more?

Miguel replied to his own question on his blog and I thought it was put very eloquently.

“Perspectivism, that is, the acceptance of the existence of many valid perspectives, seems to undercut both negative judgment and positive judgment. The result is a fairly neutral outlook. So what justification is there to think only happy thoughts? Isn’t happiness just one perspective of many? Why focus only on the positive perspective? Could it be that the neutral outlook generated by perspectivism is really just inner peace? I know that inner peace promotes happiness; it allows positive feelings to flourish. Perhaps the real pathway to happiness is to use perspectivism to gain inner peace, and then one’s naturally positive feelings can flourish.”

Great perspective Miguel!

Feeling neutral is not a bad thing. In America and many other countries, most of us believe that we need to feel passionate about something or we don’t feel alive. Neutral emotions have their enjoyable factors as well. When you can learn to appreciate all the movement of your life with openness then balance will permeate your thoughts and emotions. You can do this by letting go of the need to chase after each thought and emotion, and allowing the joyful feelings underneath your passions to sprinkle into your life, creating a more peaceful existence.

Most of my answers were based from upsetting feelings, but allowing ourselves to get sucked up into the happy feelings can lead us to grasp for joy instead of allowing it to come naturally. Visit my Awareness Series posts if you want a more in-depth approach on how to deal with positive and negative feelings

I would like to thank Miguel for spurring on a deeper look into perspectivism. There are always more ways to get a better grasp on an idea.

• Perspectivism

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 am and is filed under Stress Management, enjoy everything.