Kewaunee County Sheriff Matt Joski is gaining plenty of perspective this month during his most recent deployment with the Wisconsin National Guard. Based in Oshkosh for his duty, Joski has been crisscrossing the state to help communities set up sites for COVID-19 testing. Being away from home has been tough for Joski, but at the same time, he has seen business owners and people in other walks of life deal with their own personal struggles during the pandemic. He urges people to try to take an optimistic view and keep other people’s perspectives in mind when approaching a situation.
During his travels with the Wisconsin National Guard, Joski says he has learned that while we live in a diverse state, there is a commonality that ties everyone together.
FROM SHERIFF JOSKI
In this time of challenge, our ability to remain resilient can make the difference between success or failure and happiness versus distress. I was having a conversation with someone recently regarding fuel prices. This person noted that the cost per gallon of fuel had risen to $1.59 which to them was a source of frustration. I thought at the time how ironic this was, as just a few weeks ago we were all elated that the cost of fuel had gone down to $1.59 which gave us great comfort. Same price - different perspective.
For most of us, we don’t realize or appreciate the importance of perspective, until we find ourselves on the giving end. Many times we resist the notion that anyone could possibly know more than we do. We tend to approach events in our lives engulfed in the emotion that we feel in the present tense. Too often this leads us to a fatalistic view of what we believe are the outcomes of a given situation. You can take a simple event like failing a test as a student. In your mind you play out the worst case scenario, believing that your shortcoming is just the first step in what may be your ultimate doom. This could apply to the loss of a job or the ending of a relationship, or in our current situation, the consequences of either the virus or our society’s response to the virus. In reality these are just events, although significant it is important to put this into perspective and remember that “This too shall pass”.
As parents we know the frustration when we try to share our perspective with our children or anyone for that matter who is going through an event that we ourselves have already experienced. Even though none of us have ever experienced a worldwide pandemic, it does not mean that a healthy perspective isn’t relevant. What it does mean is that we all need to be sensitive to the varying perspectives which exist based on the impact these events have on each individual personally.
A valuable tool in getting through the many challenges we face, is to always put things in perspective. This is easier said than done I know. It requires us to step back from the event and apply some simple steps which will allow us to bring logic rather than emotion to our reactions. The first step is to allow ourselves to consider actual worst case scenarios, and then apply best possible outcomes (Even those that may seem unrealistic). The final step is to arrive at the most logical outcomes of the event and thus bring a more realistic perspective to the situation we are facing.
When we look at the many resiliency skills, perspective is for most of us a skill that we need to apply on a daily basis. Our responses to the many events that unfold in our lives can be tempered in most cases by simply putting things in perspective. In order to do this however, we also need to establish what is most important in our lives. Without a firm grip on what really matters in life, it becomes very difficult to have a healthy perspective no matter what the situation. In contrast once we determine solid healthy values, perspective is a natural outcome.
