When Problems Feel Big, Zoom Out

Perspective plays a major role in how we judge our situation. For example, if you were in a multi-car pile-up on the highway where your car was totaled and you fractured your leg, you might think various thoughts. How there will be a financial hardship between needing new car and time out of work due to injury. The dread of having to search for a car and deal with *that* whole process. You may feel overwhelmed about how unlucky you were to be in that pack of cars instead of the ones just before or after the accident. You may wonder how you will still meet your home demands.

But what changes if that same multi-car pile-up had 70% fatalities for those involved? Maybe your car trouble and leg cast seem almost lucky by comparison. The perspective shifts where we think we fall on the sliding scale of terrible and great outcomes.

When your world feels small, your problems feel big

With people feeling more closed off from friends and family related to COVID, I find perspective has also been impacted. When our world feels small, our problems feel big. We have decreased interactions and therefore limited perspectives. When we get together for dinners with friends, catching up and hearing about the “good” and the “bad” helps us feel out where we fit. Are other friends struggling with increased family time at home? You’re not a bad parent if it’s hard to balance extra demands when daycare is closed for a week. Are other friends feeling down about cancelled trips and lost opportunities? Do you find other couples with a strong relationship are feeling new stressors without the balance of social activities they previously had?

While you might not be able to resume “normal” based on varying factors, you could find that broadening your world, and therefore perspective, helps. Talk with others. Expand your resources and reconnect with people you may have lost touch with over recent years. Work on making a more balanced view of your situation and your place in the world. Plot your feelings on a new scale. Reach out for help as well as offer help to others. By expanding your world, you may find—in addition to other benefits—your problems shrink in perspective.