I was wrong.
For anyone who’s known me for more than 10 minutes, you know how hard that sentence was for me to write. But in this case, I was definitely wrong. Over the last 30 years or so, I’ve compared chiropractors to voodoo and Ouija boards. Then I hurt my back playing some old-man basketball.
Yes, I had fallen and I couldn’t get up. (Well, not without a crane and a forklift.) I tried everything from ice to heat to stretching to popping more pills than fat Elvis. Nothing worked. Getting into and out of the car became the most painful five seconds of the day … make that year. So I turned to Dr. Nick Ponomarenko at Flower Mound Chiropractic after a referral from a friend. Several neck and back cracking sessions later, I was virtually back to myself.
I tell you this story not to brag about my miracle worker and new bestie, Dr. Nick, but because of a quick conversation I overheard while getting my back worked on. A lady on the table next to mine was talking to her therapist about her back really hurting. Apparently while giving birth to her third child, she broke her tailbone.
What? That’s actually a thing? She said it matter-of-factly as if she had broken a nail. My basketball injury now felt wimpy in comparison. A middle-aged mom of three shamed me.
Talk about perspective.
“Putting things into perspective” is always easier said than done. I should know since I’ve used that cliché about a million times when trying to teach my kids how important perspective is in life.
Here’s an example of a failed attempt to educate my son on the P-word. Him sitting at Chili’s after a youth baseball tournament game, noshing on burger bites and drinking a Diet Coke. Me chastising him that he needs to finish his meal because there are thousands of people in Dallas-Fort Worth who go hungry every night.
What the heck did that accomplish? Not a darn thing. Big declarations like that never put anything into perspective. How can you illustrate how to put things into proper perspective with your kids when they’re living a lifestyle that resembles a Kardashian?
“Baby, please put your iPhone down and understand that people in North Korea can’t even turn on their lights after 6pm. Son, please hurry up and put on your $15 Nike Elites and your $129 Under Armour high-tops, and let’s gets ready to go to our AT&T Stadium suite for the Cowboys game. Oh, and did you know that 12-year-olds in Indonesia made your outfit?”
Yeah, it just doesn’t resonate.
Of course, putting things into perspective rarely filters to the parents either. I try to put my life into perspective by watching the most obnoxious reality shows possible. When I see people on TV acting like fools, spending like morons and dressing like pimps and prostitutes, it makes me feel a whole lot better about my place in the world. You know?
In all seriousness, it’s important to put things in perspective. Without the proper perspective we might think that the sales call tomorrow is actually life and death. Without perspective we might believe that if your sixth grader doesn’t make straight A’s in AP classes they’re destined to be failures. Without perspective you might think of yourself as a failed sports parent because your 8-year-old son didn’t make his select soccer team.
Perspective makes the world go around.
So how can we help our kids learn to put things into perspective? A few ideas:
- Make them read at least one biography of an American president (yes, even Richard Nixon).
- Tell them the story of Tom Brady, who didn’t start for his high school team until his senior season, shared time as a senior in college with a freshman and was a forgotten man on draft day. Then tell them about Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school basketball team when he first tried out.
- Tell them it’s a one in 320,000 chance that you become a starting second baseman in the majors.
- Educate them on how Steve Jobs was basically fired from the company he founded before coming back and making history again.
- Show them your paycheck and show them the family’s monthly bills.
- Chart out for them how you came to do what you do for a living.
- Talk to them about your last will and testament.
Be careful on that last one. You don’t want to scare your kids, but it’s important they know there’s a 100 percent chance you’re going to die, so you have to live your life accordingly. Now that’s perspective.
Rudy lives in Flower Mound, sells stuff to make the house payment, spends weekends on dusty ballfields and recently had a GPS chip attached to his daughter. Follow him on Twitter: @Manifesto10
Published April 2015
