Perspective Is a Choice, and It’s Yours to Make

A note to young leaders.

Life is not mere happenstance.

Events matter – but not nearly as much as how you choose to interpret them.

Our experience of life is inherently subjective, and follows a familiar formula: event-meaning-emotion.

You can’t change the events that happen to you, but – if you change your interpretation of them – the new meaning that you create will result in a totally different emotion.

I grew up in the 1970’s, during the Lebanese civil war. I saw my mother shot in front of me (she survived 🙏🏼), watched my father and two brothers taken hostage, and twice stood close enough to bombs to feel the impact of shattered glass.

We moved so often as a family that, by the age of twelve, I had already attended 10 different schools. Not fun for a child who was born a deep introvert.

I can choose to interpret these events in any number of ways.

One option is to see myself as a hapless victim of fate. A leaf blowing in the wind. If I do, I should come to wonder in time, how I even managed to retain my sanity. Survival would be my mindset.

An alternative is to see my challenging childhood as a blessing and a preparation for greater things.

What if, for example, these experiences were just the trial and tonic I needed to overcome my timidity, trust in divine protection and commit to helping the lonely and the forgotten?

You are not a leaf blowing in the wind.

You are the wind. The events of your life are the leaves.