
A Broken Phone and a Wheelchair
In a previous article I talked about the theoretical aspects of perspective and how it can benefit you in your daily life. Today, I would like to tell you a story about a practical experience which changed my perspective on life yet again and allowed me to re-calibrate within seconds.
I said it before: Tragedy will strike, no matter how much you try to prevent it. It´s a snake that will always slither its way back into your life, even just in the slightest ways. Currently, at my new University, we are having an orientation week with a lot of lectures on how the system works, what we need to and must not do and how not to get lost in the middle of our studies. And yeah, in all honesty, I had big trouble paying attention because there were so many things being re-iterated over and over again. Honestly, 80% of the things the talk about, while I appreciate that they do so, not everyone is such a paranoid and frantic pothead like me who reads over every single information in advance, was already written in the guides and E-Mails. So, I thought that it was often more a waste of time than anything else.
The Phone
To keep the story short; After the event we headed for a coffee. On the way back from that, my phone fell screen flat on the floor and now the screen is entirely broken. And to my great surprise, I did not, like I would have a few years or even months ago, get angry. No, instead, I had a hard time even caring about it. To me, it simply was not that important anymore. For the previous few months of the summer, I had been indoctrinating my shattered soul to the point of conscious brainwashing with a dictum I used to have a hard time believing before it had just now started to prove so useful.
“There is always someone who has it worse than you do.”
To be able to fully grasp this saying´s potential, I had to humble myself to my outside environments. When hell hits you, you quickly tend to assume that there is nobody who has it worse than you do at this current moment. How you feel is the worst that a human being could ever experience and so you even start to develop a strange sense of pride over your tragedy. You make yourself the victim of the events. The oppressed, the puppet, the controlled. And while this is a very comfortable position to be in, because you can always whine and complain and someone will feel sorry for you, it will inevitably lead you deeper down the stairs of despair without you even noticing it. So what do you do instead? What did I do instead of losing my temper over a broken phone? I played the broken record in my head again. The one of perspective and the unmitigated truth that people have it a lot worse than I do, even without a stupid clean phone screen, makes me cringe to even talk about it. And I was proven right.
The Wheelchair
I like to deal with a problem before it becomes worse or a real objective of negative emotions. Hence, after the phone broke I wanted to go fix it in a local phone shop. The store was just 900m away from the University campus so I and a fellow student decided to take a walk to said place. Little did I know that these 900m would be so impactful to my mind, my head and my heart. It is a straight road. There are no left or rights. We were just walking along the pedestrian road when on the end of the street, I could see a person. But not a usual person, not even someone I knew. No. It was a man in a wheelchair. I could see him from the distance because it is a fairly distinct shape to recognize. But that man was not just sitting in the wheelchair supplying power to the wheels with his arms. No, it was worse. This man was paralyzed from his neck down and used a joystick attached in front of his chin to move his wheelchair. At first, I could not believe my eyes when I saw it, but it was true. And you know what´s the most respect-inducing thing to me?
He grinned with a bright smile across his face when he passed by us. I had never seen him before, never heard of him before, nothing. He just smiled at me for no reason whatsoever, and I was humbled, struck by this experience. It was like a hammer to my heart. And then I felt my thumb wandering over the broken glass of my phone screen in my left pocket. What little things we complain about and let them ruin our day, while this hero is out there donating his beautiful smile to whoever walks by. What little do the things we use our temper over even matter. How dare I let my emotions overcome myself over these meaningless things.
The Freedom
I have nothing but respect and admiration for this man. How he can stand and fight in the face of all the suffering he experiences every second of his life, is beyond me. He bears his cross with such strength and happiness that it immediately put a smile on my face. The beauty of the mind and soul is truly an awe-inspiring phenomenon. And whenever you encounter another soul, there is an enormous amount of lessons you can learn from them.
So, I walked away, I went on. And in that moment, right then and there, sensed a notion of re-calibration and shift in perspective yet again. I didn´t tell it to my fellow student walking next to me, I just smiled and silently went on as if it were nothing. But this chain of events reminded me of another crucial tactic which I so often tend to disregard.
It is the small things. Every deeds from ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. It´s no grande act by a famous actor, politician or businessman which really enables you with a shift in perspective, but rather a smile from a stranger or a small deed of good faith which really impact our reality. In my opinion, that is because we tend to put the people of public interest on a mental pedestal and attribute some sort of superpower to them. It´s a misconception, we all know that, yet we are inclined to believe it.
However, little deeds of good faith or not limited to a person of a particular status, we ALL are capable of them. We can all share a smile with a stranger, give a helping hand to someone struggling with their grocery bag or help someone carry a piece of furniture up the stairs. The variety of possibilities is endless. Realizing this took me time, and it happened once again in a situation which I should have regarded to be one of negativity. But it was not, it was quite the contrary. It was a moment of great change and humility, and it all started with something unexpected, it started with a broken phone.
