What You Really See

As the media has a field day with the arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard Professor who was trying to get into his own house, I started thinking about perspective and how we all see things differently depending on a number of factors

Sure our life experiences, gender and socio-economic status cloud our view sometimes, but in my house perspective seems most shaped by height and age.

For example, today the Little One and I were playing while the Big One was a preschool. There was some kind of noise and Gracie Lou started barking and going crazy standing at the front door as if someone was there.

I’m not sure what the noise was, but I was fairly certain it was not a knock on the front door. The Little One wasn’t so convinced. She looked me straight in the eye and said this:

“Mommy, aren’t you going to smell it?”

It took me a minute to realize what in the world she was talking about. Then it clicked. She wanted me to go check the peep hole on the door to see if anyone was out there. But to her two-year-old eyes, it looks like I am smelling the door when I do that.

Next time you see something that doesn’t look quite right or when your kids looks at you like you have three heads, take a moment to see things from a different perspective and see how different the world can look.