Release Your Perspective as the Only One
“It didn’t work.”
I hear the nurse mutter this under her breath. I am just now waking up from the sweet sedation of anesthesia.
I get my bearings. I’m back in the recovery room. I’m in a hospital gown. My routine colonoscopy is over. I’m happy about that.
But she’s saying it didn’t work? I went through all that horrible prep for nothing? How could it not have worked?
My emotions plummet straight down.
Some things are out of our control. We can’t stop a rainy day. We can’t stop life from changing. We can’t perform our own colonoscopies.
This year I’ve been working on the RELEASE of things I can’t control (Release is my One Word 2022). For November I’m trying to release my perspective as the only one, the right one.
But when the nurse says, “It didn’t work,” I can only see from one perspective: mine.
I find my voice. I ask her, “My colonoscopy didn’t work?”
The colonoscopy went fine. She says she was talking about her ipad. It’s her ipad that wasn’t working.
Oh!
Seeing things from her perspective instead of my own makes me very happy.
It doesn’t always work this way, of course. Sometimes seeing someone else’s perspective can be painful. It can increase our angst or reveal our inadequacies or prove we were wrong.
But even if temporarily painful in the moment, broadening our viewpoint is almost always helpful in the long run.
So I continue to work on releasing the fallacy that my perspective is always the clear one, the true one. Maybe sometimes it is, but many times my perspective is formed in the leftover fog of life’s anesthesia.
There are many angles in any given situation. I only see from my limited perspective.
But by opening up to the perspectives of others, I can expand my own.
Things aren’t always about me. They’re also about someone else. Or their ipad.
I’m glad to know that.
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Read More:
- Do You Need to Explain Yourself?
Do you often feel the need to justify your words or actions? I’m trying to release the need to justify my decisions. - 5 Ways to Let Go of Unrealistic Expectations
It’s normal to get our hopes up, but it’s unhealthy to cling too tightly to results out of our control. - Don’t Look Away—This Will Happen to You Too
These 5 things will happen to you too. Stop denying it. Take a look.
It truly does take an effort to view the world from someone else’s perspective, Lisa. I will try to open up my mind to other points of view in the future.
Glad the procedure went well; I’m grateful that I can get results from Cologuard (sp.) instead of having to go to the hospital.
Blessings!
You’re right that it does take effort to do this. I don’t always want to put forth the effort, honestly. But the rewards are great when I do!
I’m glad you’re able to use Cologuard. Maybe one day I’ll get to. 🙂 They found cancer years ago with my first colonoscopy, so they make me do it the yucky way. But that’s okay if that’s what it takes. I’m grateful.
What a relief that there was no problem with the colonoscopy.
It’s so true that gaining someone else’s perspective can be painful or uncomfortable at first. But the clarity or correction or insight it brings us is usually worth it in the long run.
Exactly. I was thankful for Jeff’s perspective tonight when he found my missing credit card in one of the very places I had already looked. 🙂
I was so grateful they didn’t mess up the colonoscopy. lol. But unfortunately they said I needed to have another one in a year. Sigh. I was hoping for a longer gap before the next one. I try not to complain (too much) about the frequency though since the first one likely saved my life years ago. They keep a close watch on me to make sure I have no more cancer show up.
I’m sorry they found cancer in you years ago, Lisa. I hope they never find it again! I imagine the “leftover fog of life’s” scary experience of cancer colored your perspective, too. Love, hugs, and blessings to you!
At my last colonoscopy, I told the doctor the I could feel everything. She didn’t do anything. It’s like to she didn’t hear my perspective at all. Later the nurse told me they couldn’t give me more because my blood pressure was too low. So from their perspective, the risk was too high. But I sure wish they would have told me that when I was wide awake through it all! 🙂 Maybe the lesson is that we can listen to all perspectives–seek to understand before coming to any of own (wrong) theories!
“Routine colonoscopy” is not a phrase I have heard or seen ever before in my life. American healthcare is weird. <— my British perspective 😀 … although I’m very glad they caught that cancer in time!
I love perspectives. Definitely the more the merrier. A single perspective is always lonely, and fogged like in your story, and emotionally fragile too.
Most exciting is when, once you have two or three perspectives, you can imagine a fourth or a fifth. It doesn’t have to be, “one of these must be the right one” — you can release that, and work together as a group to make a new perspective.
Lisa,
My first reaction when I read your words was, “Oh no…Lisa went through all that awfulness for nothing?!!!” I’m sometimes all too quick to jump to my own conclusions without hearing the whole story. I am learning, even in my old age, that my opinion is not the only one; often I’m wrong; don’t assume; let go of all or nothing thinking…and the list goes on. Thanks for encouraging me along this continuous journey.
Blessings,
Bev xx
Oh, boy! I’m pretty fond of my perspective! ?. But there are so many times when God whispers in my soul—is this the only way to think of this situation?
Lisa, at first I got worried. Then as I continued reading I have to agree that we need to sometimes stop and think about what the other person’s perspective is.
visiting today from G&T
My heart sank when I thought your colonoscopy didn’t work!! What a relief to gain the true perspective!
And this post is packed with wisdom that should be obvious but, unfortunately, we waste a lot of energy defending our one-sided and limited view of the world.
Oh, my goodness! We desperately need God’s perspective! And then, we need to gain from other’s perspectives too. I’m glad you had another good report, Lisa!
Talking about colons and perspective, my mind immediately jumped to a Natural Therapy programme I underwent several years ago, where they kept insisting on doing some kind of invasive therapy – a colon cleanse – to enable people to lose weight. I refused to undergo this, but found that people come there regularly for precisely this reason! So when you used the word ‘routine’ and ‘colon’ in the same sentence, my first response was to caution you not to do that.
It was as I read further and saw the comments I realized what you meant.
How true your words are: Many times my perspective is formed in the leftover fog of life’s anesthesia.
We all tend to have a one-sided view of things, don’t we? It’s so important to seek God’s help to gain a wider perspective. But when it comes to colonoscopies, I would have been glad to know mine was wrong. 🙂
Lisa thank you bunches for sharing this poignant message with Sweet Tea & Friends this month.