Roger and I love to go to the Compass Room at the Hyatt Regency Downtown at night. It’s fun to see the city all lit up and notice what has changed since the last time we were there. It occurred to me recently that life is a lot like a revolving restaurant.
When we first sit down, we focus on the view and spend a few minutes gazing at the sights. As we place our orders and our attention drifts away from the window, we’re oblivious that we’re moving. After a while, we look up and realize that we’re facing another direction. We have a completely different perspective on the city without any effort on our part.
Isn’t life just like this? When we’re young we have a way of viewing the world and our lives. As we grow up and get more engaged in life, we don’t notice the tiny but continuous changes we’re making. It takes milestone events such as graduations, births, deaths, and big birthdays to get our attention and notice the shift in our perspective. If we think about it, we realize that we see things differently than we did 20 years earlier. We appreciate things we never did when we were younger, and now we understand what our parents or other elders were trying to tell us. When I was 19 and my father was almost 50, I remember him telling me he still felt 19. Back then I didn’t really understand how that could be, but I totally get it now.
Our ability to receive with grace and ease is not just affected by our willingness and consciousness. There are some things we just won’t be capable of receiving until our perspective shifts from life experiences. This insight has helped me be more compassionate with myself when I recognize how long it’s taken me to learn certain lessons. It also is enabling me to let go and worry less about the younger people in my life, be they relatives, students, co-workers, or friends. Just as the restaurant revolves without our effort, our lives progress, giving us a fresh outlook and new receptivity every time we stop to pay attention.