What the Dump Truck Taught Me (A lesson in perspective)
“I hate dump trucks,” I declared as I maneuvered out of range of one that had been driving alarmingly close to my car. “I knoooooww mom,” my son replied next to me, emphasizing the response with an eye roll. Clearly, he’d heard the dump truck story before. And obviously, I was going to tell it to him again anyway. 😊
In my early twenties, I was involved in an accident with a dump truck/ trailer combo. It was the lunch hour rush in downtown Bellevue, and I was headed back to work after hitting the Whole Foods salad bar. I started to turn right on a green light, when I realized that the dump in the lane next to me was drifting into my lane as he turned. I slammed on the breaks and laid on the horn, but he continued to turn- right into my driver’s side front end.
I got out of the car, fuming. The front end of my little Ford Focus was completely caved in, wheel and all. The trailer basically rolled into and through it. The driver was working for a nearby construction site and fell all over himself with apologies. He didn’t see me! He wasn’t thinking as he cut his turn into my lane! I started to calm down as the cops arrived.
And then the driver’s foreman arrived. And the story changed.
Soon the story was that the dump truck had established himself in both lanes, and I was the one dangerously trying to squeeze into the rightmost lane to make a quick turn. I was a young woman in my 20s. I was broke after visiting the Whole Foods salad bar. My car was crushed to the point of needing a tow truck. Of course I lost my s&*t.
I started furiously snapping photos of the accident. (On my disposable camera that my Farmer’s Insurance broker gave me for such occasions!) I started yelling at the driver and the foreman. There was no way they were getting away with this injustice! I wasn’t some helpless, gullible woman they could intimidate!
As I fully settled into my rant, the cop at the scene pulled me aside and did something very smart. He told me that I was lucky to be standing there yelling at everyone. In fact, I was lucky to be alive.
“Often when I see these kinds of accidents, the trailer has rolled right over the top of the car. That’s 12 tons coming down on the top of your car. You’re lucky it just clipped your front end,” he told me.
And just like that, I lost all of my fury. I think at that point I set down the camera I’d been brandishing and sank onto the curb with my head between my legs.
Recalling the story to my 13 year old son on the way home from his doctor’s appointment, I realized the most important thing about this story. (It wasn’t how much dump trucks suck. Close second.)
It was the power of just three sentences to entirely change my perspective on the situation. I went from furious about the injustice of the driver’s lies to being grateful that I was alive and unharmed.
From anger to awe, in just 30 seconds.
We spend so much time judging our circumstances as good or bad. This is awful. This is unfair. This is so unlucky.
In reality, we have no idea how things will turn out. How the story can shift with just a few new pieces of information. How very possible it is that in the long run, this terrible thing will end up being a good thing.
I’m not going to credit my 25-year-old self with fully getting this lesson. It was many years later that I connected those dots to my current practice of looking for the gifts in each tough situation. Sometimes I can’t see them right away. In those moments, I can at least be open that they will show up. And often, even as I’m triaging the latest disaster, I can already start to see the silver lining in the situation. I can believe that things could shift for the better.
I can go from angry to grateful, in a very short time.
What are you carrying around that causes you anger, fear, or resentment? Is it possible that your perspective on the situation could turn on a dime, based on new information? What would it take? How open are you to seeing it?
