Seeing Inside and Out

Perspective. That’s what it all comes down to.

It was a warm summer evening, and the apartment door was open. The June air wafting inside seemed to be inviting me to forget my homework for one night and go play outside. I was trying to be good and do my homework, but somehow I ended up in my bedroom doorway talking to a roommate about two of our friends who had unexpectedly broken up and how I hated how I found out everything through Facebook. I was chatting away when suddenly, a guy named Tom walked into our apartment through the open doorway. I paused as I looked over at him. I didn’t know Tom well, but from what I had heard, I knew that he had recently gone through a pretty hard breakup. Poor guy. He was tall and skinny and had a bush of curly hair on his head. I couldn’t help being reminded of Mr. Tumnus from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe whenever I saw him.

“Hey, Tom,” I said, waving over to him from my bedroom door.

He had slumped onto one of our couches and waved lazily back at me. He looked like he’d had a rough day. He asked me, “You wanna make something good to eat?”

One trip to the store and one giant cookie with ice cream on top later he asked me, “Do you want to go to the park?”

I knew I shouldn’t. I had a whole research proposal to finish for class tomorrow. But I decided that I wouldn’t live forever, (especially after eating that 1,000 calorie cookie) and made the choice to be a rebel. I changed out of my denim skirt into pants and followed Tom out the door. All day long I had been wearing high heels, and they had given me one giant blister on the side of my foot. I had put a band-aid on the sore, but it didn’t do any good. I felt like I was trying to play hopscotch as I leapt around spasmodically, trying not to let my shoe rub against the blister.

Tom laughed, “You don’t want me to have to carry you on our first-“

He stopped mid-sentence. But I knew exactly what he had been about to say: “Our first date.” And I knew why he had stopped too. This wasn’t a date. At least, not according to me. After walking around the park once, we sat down on a bench to talk.

“I don’t get angry easily and I never shout,” Tom told me. “I really like helping people—But I’m not very good at listening.”

As Tom talked to me I felt funny somehow, as if maybe the things he was telling me weren’t completely accurate. And then suddenly, I realized what the problem was. Tom was telling me all about himself exclusively from his point of view. He wasn’t allowing me to see him from my own view. I was getting a biased version of Tom based solely upon Tom’s perspective of himself. This is when I thought of what I now call The Perspective Theory.

Here’s the idea: there are two versions of ourselves—the self that we see ourselves as and the self others see us as. Both are equally valuable because they both offer two completely different insights into our true character. However, they are both limited. When Tom told me all those things about himself, I knew that those things might not be 100% accurate because his perspective of himself is limited. But at the same time, I knew that my own perspective of Tom wasn’t spot-on either. Tom was stuck on the inside and I was stuck on the outside.

Am I not making sense? Maybe another story will help.

One day, my speech partner Jake and I needed to videotape a persuasive speech for class. We hunted around on campus for a good place and finally came across a deserted classroom that looked like a prison cell with white cement walls. (Perfect, right? Don’t ask me why we chose this room.) Jake set up the camera on the tripod as I rehearsed my part.

When we were both ready, Jake said, “We’ll just keep the camera rolling the whole time, so if you mess up, just back up a few lines and keep going.” I nodded my head and looked at the camera. Then Jake tapped the record button and gave me the thumbs up.

“We realize the issue of eating disorders with American women is one that needs to be addressed; however, putting disclaimers on altered photographs is not the solution to decrease the rate of eating disorders among women.”

I paused. I couldn’t remember what came next. I remembered what Jake said about keeping the camera rolling, so I just looked down at my notes real fast and then started over again.

 But I messed up again. And again. To save space, let’s just say I messed up a lot. After take two, I asked Jake if I could watch some of the video to see if I was doing alright. He took the camera off the tripod and handed it to me. I replayed the video and saw a skinny girl with long, brown hair on the small, square screen. She sounded very professional at first as she began to talk, but then she messed up. Her eyes rolled upward and she said something funny. I laughed. When she messed up, she said things I didn’t remember her saying before. I saw her from a different light than I had ever seen her before.

I saw myself outside myself.

It makes me wish that I could see myself from the inside and the outside all the time. How many things could I learn about myself if I were to see Liz how everyone else does? Instead of being trapped inside trying to figure myself out, how wonderful would it be to escape from myself for a moment and take a look from the outside perspective? But I can’t. Nobody can.

Except for one person. It randomly came to me one day as I was walking down some stairs on campus. I was just beginning to walk down, when suddenly I thought, “God knows us so well because He can see us from the inside and the outside. He can see us from our perspective as well as the perspective of others. That’s why He knows us better than anyone else.” And interestingly, he loves us more than anyone else too. So, would we love who we are more if we were able to see ourselves how God sees us? Would we come to understand who we really are if we were able to not only see ourselves from the inside, but the outside as well?

It’s hard to tell. I’m sure I would see more mistakes I’m making in life if I were able to watch a videotape of myself at the end of every day. That probably wouldn’t make me like myself more. So, I don’t think seeing ourselves from the outside would make us necessarily like ourselves more, but we would certainly understand ourselves more.

Now I’m wondering: after reading this, do you think I’m crazy or just very thoughtful? Do you think you’re wiser from reading this, or did you just waste your time? Is the glass half full, or half empty?

It all comes down to your perspective.