Point of View

Am I posting this a few days late?  Or a few days early?  I didn't realize we had one due this past Sunday, but I notice we have til this Sunday for a 'makeup' post... so ... I guess it depends on my point of view.

Did you ever notice that what we believe and and are willing to stand up for have a lot to do with our 'point-of-veiw'?  It is always easier to tell others what they 'should have done' or what you 'would have done' in their shoes.  It is always easy to take a stand on a principle you yourself will never actually face.  We talked in class about whether we thought ourselves to be creators or critics, I have taken other classes that asked whether or not we thought ourselves predjudiced or open mined.  We are asked to label ourselves in many ways, in many different formats.  Single or Married, Democrat or Republican, ProLife or ProChoice, some labels are more volitile than others. The way we choose to answer often depends on our current point of view: our current age, our current economic situation, our current job, or the status of those closest to us. 

In my early teens I was very passionate about so many things. I won't get into specifics, this isn't about the specifics.  What I most hated hearing then, in response to my spouting off, was that I was too young to have a valid opinion on so many of life's issues.  Too young to vote (therefore my political rants were unfounded) and too young (and female) for the draft (therefore not considered vested enough to hold an opinion about Regan bringing back the draft).  I turned 18 two days after the presidential election that year.  Funny thing was, that was a time when I was most aware and knowledgable of the political platforms of each of the candidates.  I may have been too young to grasp the consequences of some of the platforms, but, from my point of view, my opinions were valid at the time.

Many of my opinions were formed based upon the views of my mother - the most influential person in my life growing up.  But that doesn't mean they were the same opinions as hers.  I had my own experiences that combined with the lessons she tried to teach me that ultimately made me who I am.  Some people see the world in 'black and white', they don't consider all the shades of gray.  For them, there is only ONE right way, ONE right set of behaviors, ONE acceptable way of viewing each situation.  My grandfather was that way.  My mother rebeled, she saw all the shades of gray, considered all the possibilities before making a stand on any subject.  She taught me to do this as well.  She taught me to come up with my own 'right' answers, not just parrot what my friends said, or what my grandfather said, or even what our pastor said.  She felt knowing "why" we believed something was as important as the belief itself.

To 'put yourself in someone else's shoes' is the ability to empathize, to not just hear  their point of view, but to see it from their eyes.  It is so easy to just say, "I know, if that happened to me, I would do ________".  We never really know what we would do until we are actually in a specific situation that requires us to make that choice.   And until we have aquired sufficient knowledge, be it age related, book learned, or life experiences,  it is premature to state what we - or anyone else - should do in any given situation.  When one of my children does something wrong, I have them explain to me "why?".  My second daughter was almost expelled from kindergarten for fighting. The letter from the teacher said she held a boy by the throat against the fence until a teacher intervened.   I asked her, "Why did you choke that boy?"  She told me, "I had to stop him from hitting my friend, boys are not supposed to hit girls!"  From her point of view, she had commited an heroic act of protection - not an act of violence.  Cudos for protecting her friend, which was taken into consideration when deciding the punishment.  Punishment focused on her learning that two wrongs don't make a right.  (She had to apologize to the boy and tell the teacher how she had learned to handle similar situations in the future.)   'Point of view' colors our speech and our actions every day.  It detemines what movies we like, the friends we keep, how religious we are, and the jobs we do. 

In studying other cultures and subcultures, we learn about the why's and the how's of a life or experience different from our own. When we write about it, we are 'walking in their shoes' for part of the time while contrasting/comparing it with our own 'why's and how's'.  By learning about others, we learn more about ourselves.  We broaden our 'Point of View'.