One reason I’ve always loved camping is because it makes me appreciate both nature and civilization. We arrive at our site and unload, setting up the tent and the portable kitchen and washing area and every time I find myself thinking “this is amazing! let’s live here forever pure and free in nature!” A week later, when even the soap is dirty and it’s getting impossible to keep the spiders out of the tent, I’ll be singing the praises of electricity and hot water and a comfy bed. It’s like this every time I camp, because camping provides perspective.
Ditto travel. You want to know about the place that you live? The best way is to go somewhere else for a little bit and see how other people live. I can go to Rome and see what’s lacking in my hometown but also what’s still powerful and good. Or I can go to New Mexico, where it’s 103 degrees and everyone is running on desert speed (low gear) and it’s a world away from the endless rainy green (but also more rapid pace) of my home.
Any kind of change can give you perspective. Get up really early for a couple of weeks. Or if you already get up early (condolences) then stay up really late. Go vegan or carnivore for a bit. Read, listen, watch things that are very different then you usually do. Take a different route to work, visit a park in a different part of town, go to a new grocery store or restaurant.
It’s not just about novelty (though novelty is fun). It’s also not about morality. These options aren’t presented with moral judgements (you may decide that getting up early or going meatless is more moral, that’s up to you). It’s about perspective — getting a different viewpoint.
So why might you want to get some perspective? Apart from just the fun of trying new things?
First, it allows to you do a better job of identifying your preferences. You might decide that you want more leisurely meals or sunrises or documentaries in your life. You could stumble across the ‘one simple thing’ that’s a perfect life hack for your sleep or diet or whatever. If you make a big change then, bam, your whole life changes! When we moved in 2020 I was floored at how much better our lives became (despite getting a cancer diagnosis the week after we moved). I was floored because our old location and house weren’t terrible or even bad… but comparatively our new place was much better for us. You might also decide that you like things in your life more than the alternatives… which is equally powerful. For example, I like being at home with my husband and just cooking together. I like it better than eating out. I like having people over more than meeting at a restaurant. It’s good to know that about myself.
Second, perspective makes you more robust to change. A little chaos deliberately injected can check for areas of fragility ahead of accidental chaos. Activities like camping or travel are particularly good at testing your resilience as well. Like, can you handle trouble and inconvenience? What kinds and how much? This isn’t just about being a fussy baby. Like, are there really things you can’t do because of physical or emotional limitations? My last visit to DC (during the Kavanaugh hearings, OMG) pushed me to the limit of what I could handle, psychically and spiritually and emotionally. So no, I’m not moving to Washington any time soon. But change can also demonstrate your strengths. I can land, alone, in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and get myself around and fed. I didn’t know that about myself before I did it.
Finally, perspective is what you use to discern. Which isn’t just about whether you get up early or late or camp in a tent or the Four Seasons. It also allows you to judge new things that enter your life… new people and places and opportunities. You use perspective to choose right paths and make smart decisions. I have a dear friend who’s very positive and knowing her has given me great ability to see where I could be more positive and where being negative hurts me. That’s incredibly powerful! And it doesn’t mean I don’t also love my more cynical friends or my own super-practical self… I do! But knowing her gave me perspective which has allowed me to be more discerning about how much negativity I want in my life (my younger self cringes to hear me say that). I’m also better about knowing ahead of time what’s good for me and what’s not… and that’s highly personal. I need to know myself to know that because it varies person by person.
But hang on! We’ve been talking about travel and camping and other fun things… change can also be really hard and traumatic. Getting cancer, losing my mother to cancer, putting my father into memory care: those were really traumatic changes that I don’t want to repeat. But that doesn’t mean they don’t also provide the ever-valuable perspective! In fact, one way to deal with really traumatic changes is to appreciate the perspective they bring (while honestly acknowledging how much they suck). In fact, you can gain more perspective from hard change than from easy change. My trip to Rome? Yeah, I learned some stuff, but the perspective I got is going to fade. Cancer? That’s changed me permanently and given me a view on my life that I don’t think I’m ever going to lose.
I’ve gone through a huge amount of change in the past two years. But so has everyone! In fact, if your life was perfectly stable since the start of 2020, count yourself among a very small minority. Most people suffered limitations and heartache and trauma and chaos — even without moving house or getting cancer or losing parents. But we’ve also potentially gained some new perspective.
