Perspective

Standing in the crowd of thousands at the Dallas New Year’s Eve celebration in Victory Park, I learned an important lesson about perspective.

(I also discovered that I don’t think I ever want to go to Times Square for New Year’s, but that’s another story.)

We were really looking forward to going downtown to ring in 2009. We headed there with the promise of live music, meeting up with some friends and perhaps finding Chel a chocolate martini at one of the bars down there.

What we found when we got there was people packed in like sardines. (I’ve never actually seen a can of sardines, but I now imagine that sardines are packed in like people at the Dallas NYE party.) We made the mistake of starting our jaunt into the crowd at the opposite side from one of our friends. So we endeavored to slowly make our way through the sardines — er, people — but ended up getting stuck right about in the middle of the crowd, halfway to our friend stuck on the other side.

So there we would stay, in the middle of the sardines. I was still having a good time, taking in the sights on the big jumbotrons and enjoying the live music. But I could tell that Chel wasn’t enjoying herself quite as much.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “This is still pretty great!”

She pulled me down from my level (6′3″) to hers (4′8″). All we could see were people’s backs. No jumbotrons, no pretty lights. Just the backs of a bunch of heads.

We ended up having a great New Year’s. We danced among the sardines, we kissed at midnight, we got away from the crowds, met up with our friend and ended up having drinks at the Ritz Carlton.

But I learned that the difference between a good time and a bad time is often all in your perspective. So I’m trying to do a better job appreciating the perspectives of others — and also remembering that even if I’m just seeing the backs of a bunch of heads, there may actually be a good party going on around me.