It’s all about perspective
Dr Tom Mulholland is an Emergency Department Doctor and GP with over 25 years’ experience in New Zealand. He’s currently a man on a mission, tackling health missions around the world.
It’s been an interesting week. I went to the film festival to see The Farthest, a movie about the Voyager space craft escaping our solar system with a golden record onboard and messages from Earth. I thought, when our sun eventually dies Voyager will still be going and could be the only evidence that our planet and life forms existed. A trip to Wellington and the cemetery to visit my ancestors’ graves also got me thinking. For those who passed generations before me, there are only a few faded photos and headstones to prove they existed. To see my parents cleaning the graves of their respective parents was thought- and emotion-provoking. I remember my grandparents very well; hardly a day goes by when I don’t fondly think about them and what they taught me. Always an inquisitive human, I asked them what their happiest and saddest memories were of their lives. Like many of us, the birth of their children resonated as the happiest, while the death of one of their kids was the saddest – the memory of which still bought tears to my grandmother’s eyes. The youngest of her seven boys and two girls, my uncle Billy, died at 3 years old: he was chasing a ball on to the road and was tragically killed by a car. As a doctor, I’ve had to break the news to many sons and daughters that their parents have passed this mortal coil. I have vivid memories of having to tell parents that their children have died. While we don’t expect a child to die before their parent, it happens
Whatever has happened in the past is only in our memory, whatever happens in the future is only in our imagination – the only thing that is real is what is happening right now.
more often than you think.
Life, like the planet we live on, is temporary and sometimes more fragile than we expect or can imagine. That’s why living in the moment is so important. You don’t know what is going to happen next. It’s also worthwhile being grateful for what you have, rather than being upset about what you don’t.
If your child spills their food or makes a mess it’s a problem that can be solved – it’s also temporary. When you look at it, this small incident is not even a speck on the continuum of time. Yet we can get so wound up and stressed by such incidents. It’s all about perspective. In the movie, as Voyager leaves the edges of our solar system, astronomer Carl Sagan suggests it turns its cameras back to view us. Earth is eventually identified as one pale blue dot in a sunbeam.
In a workshop I ran on stress, one man said that when things are getting on top of him he visualises that One Pale Blue dot, which became the title of one of Sagan’s books. It puts the temporary nature of our struggles into perspective.
Like many parents, my grandmother didn’t know a child would die before them. While nothing can prepare us for that tragedy, it reinforces the point that we should treasure what we have, while we have it. Whatever has happened in the past is only in our memory, whatever happens in the future is only in our imagination – the only thing that is real is what is happening right now. So, take the moments to tell your loved ones how much they are loved and hold them tight. Because one day, we don’t know when, we will all depart this beautiful pale blue dot hurtling through the universe.