Finding a fresh kaleidoscope

Get some new perspective. (No, really. Here's how.)

Have you ever ridden the subway in Rome?

I did last week. It was mass chaos. It gave me overwhelming peace.

The subway car was packed. It wasn’t shoulder-to-shoulder so much as it was a record-breaking attempt at the World’s Largest Conjoined Twin.

It was 100+ people, each going to their own stops…

To run their own errands…

And see their own families.

- Nobody in that car had ever seen me before.

- Nobody in that car had ever thought about me before.

- Nobody in that car will ever see me or think about me again.

That subway car made up 427 square feet of the world’s 5.49 quadrillion.

The people accounted for about 0.00000001282% of the world’s population.

The minutes that passed there were invisible dots on an endless timeline.

But for everyone on that subway, we were the center of the universe.

And for everyone else in the world, we didn’t exist.

When it comes to our problems, we’re often encouraged to “get some perspective.”

By definition, getting perspective requires changing your vantage point. And the best way to change your vantage point is to move away from where you usually view your life.

We’re all aware that the world is big. And it’s easy to understand that our problems are small.

But it’s one thing to understand these truths logically — it’s another thing to experience them, internalize them, and adjust to them.

When it comes to gaining perspective, being aware isn’t enough.

You have to physically move.

Get out.

See new places.

Meet new people.

Gaining perspective is like learning a new skill.

If you want to learn how to paint portraits, what’s going to teach you better?

1) Reading a blog on painting

Or

2) Painting

If you want to gain perspective — if you want to take things a little less seriously and understand the fleeting, flippant, fragile nature of life — you need to step a little further away.

You don’t get true perspective from books or therapy or meditation.

You get true perspective from changing your physical view of the world.

Put simply: You get perspective from changing your perspective.

You and I are small. Tiny and infinitesimal and silly.

But when we watch the same movie from the same seat every day, it’s hard to remember than 99.9% of the world has never seen it — and never will.

If you can travel, travel.

If you can’t travel, change your routine.

See new.

Hear new.

Experience new.

And you’ll feel new.