You Decide the View

There are multiple ways of looking at a situation. Some are more helpful than others.

It's graduation season. That means mortarboard caps, Vitamin C, and commencement speeches. (And congrats to my brother, the new Dr. Rossmann!)

It's been a while since my last graduation, but I have read one commencement speech many times since then: "This Is Water" by David Foster Wallace.

Wallace argues that we get to decide how we view what happens to us. He says:

If you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

There’s more than one possible frame for seeing the same set of events. Some are more helpful than others. You decide the view.