It’s all about perspective if you really think about it. About what? About everything. That’s how I am trying to live my life, by changing my perspective on things and the interactions I have daily.
Watching the traffic on the 405 freeway from an airplane makes it look like nothing but toy cars lined up in a row with shiny red tail lights. I started thinking that maybe if I started looking at people from a bird’s eye view or airplane they would look like a mere row of marching ants and I wouldn’t have to take the people that take themselves so seriously…well, so darn seriously.
I put my new plan into action and it truly worked. It really does make a difference when you try to see something from another angle. I put it to work at a recent playgroup play date.
There we were five or so mothers and our children – mostly boys and one girl that stood out in particular. There she was, all of three or four years old, in a peach colored ruffled dress with polka dots, ruffled peach matching socks, shiny white Mary Janes and two pigtails filled with golden locks tied in matching peach ribbons and an evil smile. The moms oohed and ahhed as the little girl entered the room. “She’s precious,” they said, almost in unison, ignoring the other boys who were crying, as Princess Peach snatched their toys and hid them behind her back, still smiling at the cooing moms. If I had to put my dusty old psychotherapist hat on, I would say little Peach was striving for her mommy’s attention, while Mommy was clearly too involved in her self-aggrandizing monologue and her cup of tea to notice the pigtails flailing by her in a race to steal all the toys.
Instead of getting upset, I simply changed my perspective. Perhaps Peach’s mom had had a long day with not enough time to stop by Starbucks for her Chai and simply had to get her caffeine fix before she could discipline her daughter. And perhaps Princess Peach was doing everyone a service by teaching the boys a life lesson early on: in the end, the one with the most toys DOES win and it doesn’t matter how the toys are acquired. They would have to learn soon enough. And all of a sudden, I was no longer furious, but felt a sense of calm I didn’t know I even had.
I will remember this at our next play date with Princess Peach. If one or all of the boys decide to fight back, Princess Peach and her Mommy will learn their lesson as well: b****es don’t always win.
I’m just sayin’…
