Let The Palette Of Perspectives Colour Your Life
How’s this for a take on perspectives?
I became a pescatarian due to concerns over health, animal welfare and the environment. A personal protest against commercial farming, which is fraught with inhuman practices, over-reliance on pesticides and antibiotics, leading cause of deforestation, soil and water pollution and a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission. Cutting down on meat is part of my health plan when I started focusing on retirement.
An ex-colleague who became a marine researcher stopped eating seafood because of overfishing (environmental), mercury and micro-plastic contamination (health) and overcrowded farming methods leading to suffocation and suffering to fish and marine creatures (animal welfare). Her diet has consisted of meat and vegetables for the past dozen years or so.
Same concerns, same motivation yet different outcome…how interesting!
Same-same yet Different
Though confronted with the same facts, we arrived at opposite decisions due to our perspectives, which are shaped by personal experiences, individual value systems, emotional influences and educational/professional backgrounds. Our decisions are the outcome of these personal biases which shape our perspectives.
Having had dogs, rabbits and now a cat as pets, I am more sympathetic to furry animals, be they 4 or 2-legged. My friend on the other hand, has a weak spot for marine animals as she works up-close and personal with them daily.
We both set out to address the same concerns yet our personal perspectives lead to differing decision. I thought it’d be kinder, environmentally better and healthier to choose seafood over meat while she thought of meat as a lesser evil than seafood.
Perspectives Shade Us
While facts are objective pieces of information, perspectives influence how we select, process, interpret and shape our understanding and opinions. Some of these perspectives can be culturally rooted, for example, how failure is viewed in Asian vs Western societies.
In Chinese culture, failure is frowned upon and seen as loss of face, not just for the individual but also to the family. It affects honour and reputation and must be avoided at all costs. This puts tremendous pressure and societal expectation in academic performance from a young age, leading to disproportionate stress, anxiety and youth suicide.
Western culture, on the other hand, treats failure as necessary on the path to success. It provides opportunity to learn and grow and is less stigmatising. This perspective encourages resilience and risk-taking. No wonder Western society is the bedrock of innovation and entrepreneurship, accounting for the bulk of unicorns and big-tech companies with trillion-dollar valuation.
Changing Perspectives
The good thing is that perspectives can and do change, especially when outcomes bear out results of the opposing view. Asian societies now sees failure as a catalyst for success rather than embarrassments. This has given rise to waves of entrepreneurship and innovation in Asia, resulting in Western-style corporate unicorns and successes.
On a personal level, I was dead against active euthanasia. My long-held belief was that to deliberately end a human life was morally wrong. Not intervening to prolong life, ie passive euthanasia, was the farthest I’d accept as a humane way to handle end-of-life situations.
However, after living in the Netherlands – amongst the first and still a minority of countries where active euthanasia is legal – and having known a few friends who opted for active euthanasia, my perspective changed completely. Inducing death is sometimes kinder than letting life take its own course.
Perspectives Enrich
As I grow older, I begin to appreciate how different perspectives can enrich and add diversity to my thinking and beliefs. Differing perspectives challenge my values and belief system, broadening my spectrum of views even if I may not agree with them. In the process, I grow as a person. It’s like adding soft hues and shades to an existing artwork, blurring out the edges and making it multi-dimensional.
Every situation can be good or bad, depending on the perspective of the party involved. If you’re rooting for the lion who managed to catch the deer, the outcome is victory and success. But if you’re egging on the frantic deer, then it’s a sad ending. As with many situations in life and especially in a complex, multicultural and diverse world, a straight-forward good or bad outcome does not exist.
Colour My World
There is no better time than in retirement to explore and understand the palette of different perspectives. Having no hectic schedule, I can take time to kick off my shoes and go down rabbit holes exploring other perspectives. Sometimes, the discovery process can bring about delightful first experiences and insights. This adds shades and gives colours to my canvas of thoughts, adding intricate layers and texture.
And it is with this mentality that I want to grow older as another year beckons. Instead of counting years, I want to count the pearls of wisdom and myriad of perspectives, string them together and wear as my bead of life.
Older and wiser through perspectives,
Savvy Maverick
(Image: Lena River of Siberia. USGS, Unsplash)
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are drawn from personal experiences and do not constitute financial advice in any way. Nothing published here nor should any data or content be relied upon for investment activities. Please do your own due diligence before making any financial decisions. Data and information cited from sources will not be updated after publication.
