Perspective
Sometimes as we go through our day to day lives we forget how fortunate we are and our perspective becomes obscured. Especially when we consider the demands of our job, and what we have to deal with on a day to day basis. We sometimes forget how blessed we are and don’t realize or forget what we have been given.
Webster’s defines perspective as “a mental view or outlook.” A recent experience put my perspective in check or you might say re-aligned my perspective and I would like to share this with you. I was fortunate enough to meet someone who recently who had a big impact on me. It wasn’t a successful business person, athlete or famous person. It was a four year old girl named Alexis. I recently flew her on an Angel Flight mission so she could get treatment for “Esophageal Atresia.” I had never heard this term before and did not know what it was but I soon found out.
When she was born her esophagus did not connect to her stomach. It was too short and that meant that she could not eat. To make matters worse an over zealous surgeon decided to remove what little esophagus she had and take out part of her colon and use it to connect her throat to her stomach. Well as you might expect this did not work and as a result she has to be feed through a hole in her side using a syringe. Unfortunately she cannot live like this because her caloric demand cannot be met using this method and she will not survive unless they can somehow fix this. She was going to Boston Children’s Hospital where they hope using stem cells, they can grow her a new esophagus and transplant that into her body. The FDA is giving them some problems about doing this but they hope to get it worked out.
What really got to me was that she just smiled the whole time I was with her and just thanked me repeatedly for taking her to get well. She had an unbelievable “perspective” given her situation. I soon came to the realization that I have absolutely nothing to ever complain about. Anything we face with our clients , prospects, underwriting, etc. is miniscule in comparison to what little Alexis is facing everyday of her life.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs tells us that before we can excel to the top of the triangle and acquire “self actualization,” we must start at the bottom and have our physiological needs met first. You probably never think about this, but we must be at the top of the triangle to perform at the levels that society expects of us. You cannot get to the top if you can’t get past the first block of having your physiological needs met.
The next time you think you are getting the short end of the stick think about little Alexis. The next time you think about throwing in the towel because you keep getting a raw deal at your job or you think life is unfair to you think about Alexis. And finally when you think you just cannot take anymore, sit back and think about Alexis. I think if you do this you will so realize there is nothing we face in our jobs and our day to day lives that we cannot overcome if we have the right “perspective.”