The term WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) came into common use when computer screens became capable of putting letters and words on the screen that would look the way a page printed from them looked. At this point, of course, you have to be pretty old to remember what things were like in the “old days,” before WYSIWYG came into being. Now, most of us take it for granted that what we see on our computer screens will be what the document will look like when it comes off the printer. Computers didn’t come into common use until they had WYSIWYG interfaces.
If you are old enough, you can remember the days when only “geeks” used computers. They used special “terminals” that allowed them to access “main frame” computers that ran a limited number of programs for specific purposes, primarily mathematical. Now, of course, most people use computers, if only the computers that make their “smart phones” work. Times change. In fact, you have to be pretty darn old (as I am) to remember the days before computers and before automobiles had automatic transmissions.
And I know what it was like to write school papers on a manual typewriter back in the days before electric typewriters were common. And I am old enough to have used carbon paper when I needed multiple copies of a document. (If you’re still young, you may be asking, “What’s carbon paper?”) The perspective that comes from getting older is an appreciation of improvements over time. In a way, aging is like traveling—traveling in time rather than location.
Those who have had the opportunity to spend time in a number of cities, states, and countries see things differently because of their changing perspectives. I have been lucky enough to spend at least a little time in most of the the States and in Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Vietnam. In general, I have been glad for those experiences, with the possible exception of Vietnam, as I was not there at the best of times. Those experiences have added perspective to my life that I would not have had if I had known only Kalamazoo, Michigan—or more likely, Los Altos, California, where I grew up.
Some experiences change your perspective even as they are happening. Others take a while to “sink in.” Now that it is long behind me, I can appreciate my experience in Vietnam, for example, but I did not appreciate that experience until after I was back in the States and had returned to graduate school. Some experiences take more time to process than others before appreciation sets in. I have actually seen Vietnamese farmers working their rice paddies with water buffalo without fully appreciating it at the time. I was well into middle age before I began to appreciate everything my parents had done for me while I was growing up. The main thing, it seems to me, is to remain open to seeing more in your experiences as you grow older.
If possible, of course, try to see things from a new perspective even before you grow older. You may be able to cultivate more appreciation for another person, group, experience, or location you may have originally found less than welcome. A line from Shakespeare is, “Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise.” The problem, of course, is that one grows old at a steady pace, and wisdom does not accumulate the same way years do. It is very easy to grow old before becoming wise.
But … what if you begin to think of how what you are experiencing might look from a different perspective. William Blake said, The altering eye alters all. Change your perspective, and you change everything. At a workshop Debra and I attended a long time ago, Richard Bandler said, “Years from now you’ll look back on this and laugh. Why wait?” Indeed, why wait?