A Different Perspective

07/06/23

Hello readers, Today, I'd like to talk about lives or stories told from a different perspective. A few weeks ago, I saw an inspiring documentary about Xernona Clayton, a Black Civil Rights Leader. She has lived an incredible life at the age of 92. She has experience being a broadcaster, a broadcast executive, a businesswoman, and most significantly, a civil rights icon. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King regarded her as a close friend and confidante. She firmly believed that black and white people might come to understand one another even in a segregated world. When King lost a lot of popularity after publicly criticizing the Vietnam War in 1967 Xernona did not leave his side. "His world changed," she claimed. His friends disappeared. The cash ran out. And he was really let down. King allegedly started coming to Xernona's house frequently. He would simply expose his soul to her. She is currently carrying some of his secrets with her today, because some things he didn't want the world to know about him, like how disappointed he was that the world had suddenly turned against him. Her perception of him was different from how the rest of the world saw him, which I found to be interesting. Many people associated Martin Luther King Jr. with his more serious qualities of bravery, tenacity, and leadership. But he also showed a loving sense of humor when he was with his closest friends. She came to know Martin as a person, not only as a leader in the civil rights movement but just a black man living in an unjust world. Even though he was committed to ending racism, poverty, and militarism, he gave joy, laughter, hope, and love to people in the midst of hatred and violence. So, after watching this, I asked myself: "When someone else tells my story from their perspective what will they say?" or "Can someone really tell my story?" When you consider it, it's both exciting and scary.I believe because everyone has distinct life experiences, attitudes, and methods of organizing knowledge, everyone will have various viewpoints. When you think about it perspectives are only individual perceptions of reality, that are neither right nor wrong. They say no matter what you do and how you act, you are going to be the villain in someone's story. This is true, not because we are mean, difficult to handle or just plain rude but because we're not perfect. No one is. If another person has a bad day and our actions don't play into what they wanted or needed, we become their villain. This plays in to the perception of individual perspective and how it later gets retold. Humans are eager to define who we are based on our circumstances, how others see us, our actions, or where we are in life. Most people want to be seen as kind, empathetic and willing to help others when they are in need. While we all possess that part of us, we cling to this identity as if it is our only one. Humans are multi-faceted beings. At times we even find it reassuring to create for ourselves "false" identities. We are not any one of those things, though. And the issue with clinging to these identities is that when they are taken away from us, it leaves us disoriented and confused in addition to restricting our growth. To be free to be who we truly are, we have to disconnect from our "false" identities and embrace all parts of ourselves. Will you let your created identity be the story that is retold from another's perspective, or will you show your true self? We deal with the consequences of the way others view us because simply we must. In my opinion, I frequently believe that it is worthless to disagree with the never-ending flood of opinions held about us by others or to spend any further effort to dispute each fresh, largely unfavorable storytelling viewpoint. What a waste of energy! The truth is that we have merely become the objects of other people's stories, and at times we pay a great price for their careless manipulation of our sense of identity. We never know exactly why; it could be in an effort to undermine our knowledge of self or belief in their views to try and cause us to doubt our realities and the times in which we live. Regardless, we must remember that no matter what another's viewpoint of us may be, we must truly embrace all parts of ourselves to live our life freely. We all come from incredibly different backgrounds, yet our shared experiences have brought us together.