Perspective-Taking
Perspective - “a specific attitude or manner through which a person thinks about something”
Everyone brings their own specific attitude and view of the world based on their upbringing and personal experience.
Your experience differs from my experience and therefore your views differ from mine.
Perspective can make you see things in the worst possible way or the best possible way or anywhere along that spectrum.
It can beat you down to your lowest low or it can boost you up to your greatest high.
It can make you resilient as f*ck or insecure and hopeless.
For me, the experience of working in the public health sector and having daily interactions with people when they are in their most vulnerable states both mentally and physically is something I am immensely grateful for.
I don’t often speak about my day job or my day-to-day on this platform but specifically for the context of perspective-taking, it is a constant reminder of my priorities in life and keeps my ego/greed in check.
Being grateful that I can sit upright and maintain my sitting balance.
Being grateful that I can take the stairs or use the washroom independently.
Being grateful that my family and loved ones have thus far been healthy and whole.
Being grateful that I can express myself, my wants, and my needs.
Being grateful that I am independent in meeting my wants and my needs. I don’t need another person to manage those on my behalf.
On a day-to-day basis, I interact with and engage with people who don’t or no longer have the capacity or ability to do so, so I truly feel grateful for the self-autonomy.
This type of experience grounds my perspective. I am able to hold or imagine other people’s perspectives and as a result, not get too tunnel visioned on my own perspective. I can imagine the same situation from another perspective.
Introduction to Acceptance
And I think because of my work and interactions, I’ve grown to understand that life is too short. There are too many variables, too many potential problems, too many freak accidents to stress about to not prioritize my own happiness as well as to feel grateful for my situation.
Accepting things that I cannot change such as health or genetic issues, accepting the choices and decisions of the past, and focusing my energy towards my current situation, my current choices and the things that I can exert control over today is a. much more productive use of my time.
Why The Intersection of Acceptance and Perspective-Taking Matters
As I’ve gotten older, the intersection between accepting my situation, acknowledging my biased perspective and recognizing the lucky position I have has magnified.
Being able to accept who I am fully and knowing the privilege I have in my position (socio-economically, physically, mentally, geographically, and all the rest), I have to make the most of it.
And after going through the list of all the ways that I am so fortunate, the one conclusion is I have to be extremely happy and grateful.
How grateful am I to even be in my current position.
How much worse could it be for me.
Why It Matters for Productivity
Perspective-taking and Acceptance are everything.
It gives you humility.
It gives you patience.
It gives you understanding.
It gives you freedom of choice without analysis paralysis.
It puts into perspective your current situation with all its ups and downs and lets you focus in on what you can impose your will on. It lets you move forward in action rather than mope and complain.
It lets you feel grateful for your mistakes, your shortcomings, your learning opportunities and your obstacles to overcome.
It also lets you take someone else’s perspective to realize that what another person may want or need is not what you necessarily want or need.
And that’s okay. It’s more than okay.
It’s my authentic personal truth.
What that translates to for productivity is staying humble, knowing that sure, maybe you’re not as productive as others or are only in the infancy of your productivity journey, but being grateful that you’re in the position you are today in your productivity.
It also means that you are okay with your personal truth.
That it’s okay to want to be more productive.
That it’s okay to want to do more work when you want to.
That it’s okay to not want to veg out on the couch and instead work on that side project you’ve left on the side of your desk.
For me, I find a lot of happiness in being able to sit at a coffee shop to work. Whether that’s writing an article, taking a course, or cranking out a blog post. That’s my happiness. I much prefer that to reading fiction, lying on a beach or watching mindless television.
And the bottom line is…if it makes you happy, just do it!
My attempt at finding a stock photo where someone looks happy doing work. Guess it’s a niche photo market haha.