Perspective Matters — How to See Problem From All Angles
By: Friedrich H
Tags: Self-awareness, Productivity, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Debt

I believe the wisest thing you could do as an adult, is to keep non-reactive traits, and analyzing every problem you had from a different perspective.

Well, it’s easier to said than done, everyone agrees. But, allow me to share a realization I had a few days ago.

Recently, a close friend of mine will go to Japan next week, to pursue his Master’s degree. Our group of friends planned a farewell party, and we all come to had fun (also to send my friend off).

In a usual gathering, when it’s your closest friend, you’ll likely talk about life, problems, relationship, or anything that crossed your mind recently.

So, yeah, actually a lot had occurred to me in these past two weeks.

My younger sisters had cancer surgery. And top of that, she got into a car accident, recently.

I have a relationship problem (prefer to not talk about it in public),

And on top of that, I still had an awful amount of debt inherited from my parents.

To be honest, I don’t slightly feel remorse or depressed, I just felt platonic, flat, and even I was shocked at how I tell these stories to my friends without feeling down or any tremor in my sound.

One of my friends suddenly said, “Are you cursed?” she said with a concerned tone.

To them, it’s a super hard problem to deal with, not your typical day to day problem. And of course, it would felt like I had super bad luck having all these problems occurred in a super short timeframe.

So I asked myself, do I really had bad luck? Do I sound like I had a ton of bad luck? Because almost all of my friends agree that I did.

My friend's word crept into my mind. Realizing how much trouble I got into (without really counting it), makes me believe that I’m really cursed, or I did do some big unredeemable sins, for a split second.

But then, I realize something.

Of course, my friend would think that I had a series of bad luck, or I did cursed because they only know the bad event that happens to me in these past two weeks, right?

They wouldn’t know the uncountable blessings I had this month, because I didn’t tell them, so it’s no brainer that they would think like that.

So I started listing all the good things that happened to me.

Yes, my sister did have cancer surgery, but now she (finger crossed), doesn’t have to do chemotherapy. It’s a blessing.

Yes, my sister did get into a car accident, but she survived and unharmed, imagine the worst that could happen. Another blessing.

Yes, I have a lot of debt, but because of it, I start building a series of good habit and starting another business to make the most of twenties (instead of chill out, slacking off), to pay of my debt in time. Another blessing in disguise.

Yes, I might have a relationship problem, but it makes me realize how I value myself and my partner. Still a blessing.

Realizing all this makes me happy. Wow, I’m awfully blessed.

The point is not about trying to be 100% positive all the time, like a hopeless idiot. On the contrary, that kind of thinking is dangerous. When you’re hyper-optimist, you’ll bound to meet a certain wall so tall, that you’ll fall and get depressed because you spent almost all your life thinking that, 100% positive will get you somewhere.

But one thing to do is to keep thing’s platonic, be more observant to yourself, and know which button to push (pessimist or optimist).

The biggest question remain would be: How I Could Stay Observant?

The answer would be, always keep three perspectives when you’re looking at one problem/dilemma.

The first perspective; is how’re you feeling when a particular problem occurs to you, and what’s your immediate solution/action/reaction? What are things that only you realized that others (your friend/peer) might not?

The second perspective; is how your friend would react when they heard a particular problem that happened to you?

The third perspective; how a stranger would react, a narrator's perspective when they heard the problem that happened to you?

By allowing yourself to experience these three perspectives, you would become more observant, calm, and hopefully wise to take action that will resolve the problems.

Confused? Let’s take an example;

Your first business failed and you’re depressed since you build it from the ground up.

First perspective; you would feel angry, depressed, and confused about what to do next. But you realized that finally, you found something you passionate about. Second perspective; your friend think that maybe your target market wasn’t right, or that it was a very competitive business ecosystem. They would come up with solutions that maybe you already had in mind. They might even tell you either to build another business or just give it up and try working with someone else first. Third perspective; It was bound to happen since it was your first business, and you had no knowledge about finance, marketing, etc. They might sympathize or even pity you.

Combine these three and try to take the best of each, to put the best narrative that fits you, (in an optimist-realistic way), now you get:

You were starting your own business, with no knowledge in finance or marketing, it was inevitable that you would fail. You were angry, depressed, and lost a load of money, and it’s okay to feel that way. On top of that, you realized your target market wasn’t right. In the end, you also learned a lot of yourself and passionate about.

Now that you acknowledge all these perspectives into one objective narrative, it’s up to you to weigh any solutions available.

Yes, you can keep going on, redoing and improving your first business into a better one.

And yes, you can also quit it, get a job to learn how a company would operate.

Remember, this is life, there was no right or wrong, both options are hard. So choose your hard.

And when you met another problem down the road, remember, to come back to this page. I’ll be waiting.

23/Nov/2020

Still in debt, but will clear it in no time.

Didi Cyril