I mentioned in a previous post (or perhaps I should say, I sheepishly admitted) that I’ve found helpful the practice of repeating to myself in certain moments the three-word expression, “People are small.” It’s a way of putting people (and places and things, as applicable) in proper perspective, so that I don’t succumb to an exaggerated sense of their significance. (And the way they think about me and judge me and email me.) Puts me in my own place too. I’m not all that important either.
I was thinking more about that yesterday. In part because I was availing myself of that mantra yesterday…
Isn’t it the trajectory of any human life, isn’t it part of what it means for us to grow up, that as children everything seems so BIG to us (parents and teachers and buildings and events and everything), and it’s as we get older and wiser that we realize they’re not so grand and important after all? Whether it’s realizing our parents had flaws and still do, or visiting the church building of our childhood and finding it’s not a particularly impressive edifice after all, not like we remembered it, or returning to some annual festival that was a highlight for us as kids and realizing it’s a poorly planned and not-very-well-attended affair that probably should have been cancelled years ago. Or maybe it’s riding again the first roller coaster we ever rode on…only to reach the end of the ride thinking, “That’s it?”
When we’re kids we’re looking up at everything and everyone—even physically. But as we grow up, that changes. Our perspective changes. Ideally, our perspective becomes truer to the way things really are.
I suppose this isn’t a particularly novel or insightful observation. But for me it is a somewhat painful one. And that’s because I’ve found increasingly that I don’t seem to have grown up in this way. It hit me yesterday, and it hit me hard: how did I turn out like this? How does this happen? How does it happen that a man reaches the age of -0 (and it ain’t 20, by the way) still looking up at everything with an exaggerated sense of their significance, including other people and what they think of me? How is it that at my age I’m still so childish like this? (The amateur psychologist in me wonders, does it have something to do with me being the baby of the family, the youngest of five children? Almost certainly.)
As I’ve looked back lately on various seasons in life, seasons long past, I’ve thought to myself, You were such a child then.
But has anything really changed?
Honestly, at times this challenge feels hopeless. I simply can’t imagine turning this corner. I can’t imagine ever feeling like an adult, like a grown person who’s gained wisdom and perspective, and whom other, younger people would look up to as a person like that. I mean, my goodness, will I still feel this way 20 years from now, when I’m…-0?! (The amateur psychologist says, it doesn’t help that the person I’ve succeeded in my current professional position looks at me like a child, and that person is still around. No, that doesn’t help at all.)
Don’t get me wrong, I knew passing the milestone of that recent birthday wouldn’t fix everything. But still maybe part of me thought, it will at least get my attention and get me to shed some childish habits (like eating junk food and watching junk TV).
But has anything really changed?
I’ll end on an optimistic note…
Yes, dude, open your eyes, and see that some things have changed. Go back and read every one of these blog posts from the beginning. Now just give it time for the few steps you’ve taken to lead (I trust) to others, and for all these steps to bear fruit (perhaps) in a truly, deeply changed mindset. Including seeing just how small nearly everything really is.
I seem to recall something in a previous post along the lines of “Patience takes patience.” Perspective does too.