Gaining Perspective: The Photo on My Dentist’s Wall
By: Debra R. Thomas
Tags: Dentisr Visits, Life Lessons, Compliments, Happy Stories, Perspective

Gaining Perspective: The Photo on My Dentist’s Wall

As I walked into the sectioned off room to become the recipient of my bi-annual teeth cleaning I noticed a beautiful photo on the wall. It was a field with hills and rows of beautiful lavender bushes. I was intrigued with how beautiful it was and how fun it would be for me to experience running and playing in those green and lavender rows of blossoms as opposed to sitting in the dental chair at that moment. So many times I had received lectures and reprimands from my dentists as if I were a child who was in trouble for not cleaning my room.

Soon I was lying back in the chair with dental goggles and forgot about the photo as the hygienist began her work of cleaning my teeth. There is always that awkward silence when the hygienist asks you questions which require more than a “yes” or “no” answer and you are sitting in the chair with your mouth wide open, with a suction tube hanging out the side of it, and there are two foreign hands and two tools in your mouth. And just as you go to answer her question, you accidentally swallow all of the liquid in your mouth that the suction tube missed. Dental visits are just overall awkward for me. The theory behind excellent tooth brushing and flossing seems to be that if you take care of your own teeth well, you will not have to have some other adult scraping away at your teeth. …and of course, you won’t have the experience of being tempted to bear false witness when you are asked if you flossed everyday.

Going to the dentist has never been my favorite event on my calendar, but surprisingly this time the hygienist asked me how my life coaching was going? I didn’t remember her, but she apparently remembered me. She was genuinely interested in me and the information I was offering her about the new book I was writing. Then she really bumped up her customer service points when she said, “I love cleaning your teeth”. “They are so. Beautiful”. I had never heard that before in the dentist office when I was the patient.

Then the dentist came in and looked at my teeth and said, “Wow, you have beautiful teeth”. Of course, since he was new to the dental practice he had never met before and did not know that I had just completed Invisalign. I had to take a double check that it was really me they were talking too.

Then sadly, my visit came to an end and my chair was raised back up to the sitting position. I put my own glasses back on and happened to be looking directly into the lavender photo on the wall again, but this time in the far right corner I noticed a beautiful large tree. I was so surprised to see that tree because I had not noticed it the first time I looked at the photo upon my entrance into the room. Obviously, it had been there the whole time. The photo did not change, but my viewpoint did.

My viewpoint of visiting the dentist also changed. I was not expecting this routine visit to be transformed into an uplifting and rewarding event. This little dentist visit taught me two things. Perspective changes everything, because what you focus on is what you will see, and that people can change a person’s day by offering a few simple compliments.