Perspective

Things are slightly nuts right now, and that's probably an understatement depending on your current situation.  Whatever that situation may be, let me give you some perspective . . . but in reverse. 

Through the wonders of Facebook, when we're not reading about the latest (insert your favorite coronavirus-related rumor here), we have the ability to connect with the friends we've made over lo these many years and sort of keep track of one another.  Now, I want you take a moment and "review" your list of friends and look on them both as who they are now and who they were when you first met them.  Stay with me.

I have a friend on FB who regularly posts photos of the vegetables he's grown in his garden, and those photos usually have ten or twelve comments urging him on in his green thumb efforts.  If you met him today via one of his veggie photos, you'd feel fortunate you met him: he always has a positive outlook on life, and in those photos where he includes himself, he's always wearing a smile.  But when I met this guy, he was a punk.  No, I'm not saying that to paint him as a jerk who later reformed.  Literally, he was a punk rocker with the haircut and leather jacket - he was in a band whose logo he painted on the back of his leather jacket.  I'm fairly sure if you interviewed him back then and asked what he thought he would find joy in thirty years later, gardening would not be on the top ten list. 

Another friend is the lead singer of a country band that tours the nation.  The photos he posts show him singing at his various gigs and being with his band.  The guy I first met was on the border of shy; in a room full of people, he could sort of disappear in the crowd through his silence and conscious effort to avert all attention away from himself.  The man I first met and the man I see now on Facebook share similarities like they both have two arms and a head sitting on top of their shoulders, but that's about it. 

And I'm friends with a couple who have two beautiful children, and their photos and posts are devoted to being a family and the supreme joy they experience with one another.  When I first met them, they were just like that (only without the kids).  They were high school sweethearts, and they haven't changed a bit in personality or looks (he has less hair now but not much because he wore a flattop when I first met him).

There's nothing profound about this post.  It's just a reminder to look around you and see what has changed and what has stayed the same.  It'll be different for all of us, but it should give us the perspective to realize we have the power to be who we want to be regardless of who we were and the ability to maintain who we are even when life might try to make us to change: it's our choice.  Wherever you are in all that, choose to be your best.  Be well, my friends, and be good to each other.  The world's a little crazy; no need to add to it.