It's All About Perspective

Warning: Many many nerdy and confusing moments in this post. Bear with me. Or you could just go eat a pie. I don't know, do whatever.

In my AP Literature class, we've been reading the book Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Basically, it's about a girl named Tess who is stripped of her innocence because she is essentially raped by a creepy and mustached man named Alec who leaves her to raise a child on her own. She names the child Sorrow shortly before it dies, and goes to work on a dairy farm. While there, she meets handsome and chivalrous Angel, and the two fall in love. D'aw. She agrees to marry him, happy happy, then she marries him, happy happy, and all of a sudden, he falls out of love with her when she tells him about her illegitimate child, depressing depressing.

After all of these things happen, Tess is eventually stuck on her own, and has a tricky little encounter with a tricky little man, and she ends up sleeping in the woods in a nest of leaves. When she wakes up, she finds these injured birds who were shot but not killed, lying around in the woods. As she looks at them, all she can think of is how she was so foolish to think that her emotional pain was so terrible when these birds are dying. Now, considering what her life has been like, I wanted to just tell Tess, "So, hon... It's ok to feel a little stress if you're you. Don't you worry about those birds."

It's all about perspective. The value of objects can be predetermined by monetary or sentimental value, but don't let that fool you. Things change, and perspective can bring the importance of things in or out of focus. Something that's been on my mind is oddly... my phone case. My brother bought me a shiny new green phone case for Christmas since he knew I wanted a new one. The old one was just part of the package when I got my phone, but it was a good $30 at least (probably actually $20 because of a sale), and no one noticed it. It was black, boring, but it did its job. Now, as for this new shiny case, all of a sudden I got little comments left and right. Looks very sleek. Cool. I like the design. I knew that my brother had paid probably a maximum of $10, which gave me the idea in my head that it wasn't worth that much. But every time someone asks where I got my phone case, I'm more and more eager and happy to tell them that my awesome li'l brother bought it for me as a present.

In the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, there's a whole chapter dedicated to the idea of first impressions. For any human mind, the first impression is always the strongest, and almost impossible to shake. It effects draft picks, job interviews, college interviews, etc. (so now you've been warned). My dad, who's the principal of a firm, knows when he's found a new employee within the first five minutes that they're in his office, because of the impressions they make just with their body language and their manner. I was particularly bothered by this chapter, because although I know it's basic human nature, there's always some part that wants to give people, ideas, and objects a second chance, to try and make up for a bad first impression. I'd like to think of any major change in someone or something as a second first impression (yeah that totally makes sense), and that opinions can fundamentally, 100% change, whether it be for better or worse. Unless someone is stubborn. Stubborn people are just... Outliers. Do whatever the hell you want.

Crap. I need to stop pretending to be an intellectual. I'll draw really bad cartoons or something next time. Anyway, bottom line is: try giving something a second chance. Especially if it changes your opinion of something for the better.