Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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June 14, 2007

Change the World: Get Some Perspective

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 6:49 am

Selective Memory

Change the World!

As we get to be adults, we have conversations about growing up. Often those conversations center around our parents and what they did wrong. . . . I often recall a college friend saying, “When does it stop being our parents fault?”

I don’t know whether my childhood was happy, I only remember specific memories — even those seem to be a story told from my own point of view . . . as I found out about this one.

I told my older, older brother about my son’s attitude as teenager. I said, “I never had the nerve to talk to my mother that way.”

My older, older bother laughed. He said, “Ah, your selective memory! When your niece was your son’s age, I heard her talk back to her mother . . . how often I thought ‘Oh that’s familiar.’ It was a replay of my little sister talking to my mother. Why do you think I say my daughter is so like her aunt?”

Now I look back and think,”Yeah, I was a brat just like every other 17-year-old kid. It’s the nature of 17-year-olds. Young lions do it to their parents too. It’s part of growing up and leaving home.”

Part of becoming who we are is getting events into perspective. I’ve always been a little slow at catching on, but when I did that day, I saw my son and myself in a new way.

The rest of that year was lighter for one 17-year-old and his mother.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.


Filed under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog |



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10 Comments to “Change the World: Get Some Perspective”

  1. June 14th, 2007 at 10:50 am
    Jeff Brown said

    Funny this post shows up today. Last night I was thinking of the difference in perspective I have now as a son, vs when I was a kid. I came from what was then called a ‘broken home’ in the late 50’s. I didn’t know I was living a ‘terrible’ life. Mom made sure our lives were as normal as possible. I played all the sports in their seasons on the neighborhood YMCA team - and a bonus, two teams in baseball season. :)

    I look back now and can’t even begin to understand how hard it must have been for Mom back then. I guess that’s why I’m so happy to be able to support her financially in her old age. How do you pay her back for doing the seemingly impossible?

    Perspective sometimes is best when it comes after the so called ‘bad’ times, don’t you think? :)

  2. June 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Jeff!
    Maybe it takes us a whole lot of years to get to the place where we understand that we’ve seen the world from inside our heads. Who knew what the world thought or what it was like compared to what we lived?

    We hardly ever get to know much about our parents as people, do we? We think about them leaving us stuck our roles as children, but don’t often think that we trap into theirs too.

    If we met our family members without knowing them, would they have become our friends? Sometimes when we give them a clean slate the answer is a surprise to ourselves. :)

    Yes, I do agree that perspective is best after the “bad” times. Maybe it’s because that’s when I’m most willing to learn about what really happened before or just because or more interesting than things that go well.

    After all, it’s adversity that builds character, isn’t it?

  3. June 14th, 2007 at 11:37 am
    Jeff Brown said

    Since the market correction started, that’s the mantra. :)

  4. June 14th, 2007 at 11:39 am
    ME Strauss said

    You had character long before the market change started. :)

  5. June 14th, 2007 at 11:45 am
    Jeff Brown said

    Thanks - no matter how well you know yourself, it’s still cool to have someone you respect agree with you. :)

  6. June 14th, 2007 at 11:52 am
    ME Strauss said

    That’s exactly how I feel. :)

  7. June 14th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
    Mike said

    Liz,

    Like you said, that period of parent-child interaction needs to take place, otherwise neither would get over their years-in-the-making separation anxiety. It’s a funny and amazing world we live in!

    Mike

  8. June 14th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mike!
    Yeah, we sure are the most interesting species in so many ways! :)

  9. August 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am
    Changing the world one conversation (or blog post) at a time | Tammy Lenski said

    [...] Get Some Perspective challenges us to reconsider the stories we tell ourselves by exploring them from outside our own point of view. The stories we tell ourselves are so powerful…they become The Truth the longer we tell them, when really, they’re just narratives we’ve constructed. The ability to get out of our own perspective is not only life-changing, but can also be life-saving: [...]

  10. November 29th, 2008 at 4:34 am
    Changing the world one conversation (or blog post) at a time | Conflict Zen said

    [...] Get Some Perspective challenges us to reconsider the stories we tell ourselves by exploring them from outside our own point of view. The stories we tell ourselves are so powerful…they become The Truth the longer we tell them, when really, they’re just narratives we’ve constructed. The ability to get out of our own perspective is not only life-changing, but can also be life-saving: [...]

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