Discounting Perspective with Time

My sister, who I’m immensely proud of, is launching a career as an interior designer. She studied it in school and rose quickly to the top at the firm that hired her right out of college. When it became clear that there was no room for growth there, she decided to find a job in New York..

She’s gotten a bunch of interviews, but hasn’t landed a job at a company yet. She did, however, manage to get a high end client of her own, whose home she’ll be starting work on in a couple weeks. In her spare time, besides job hunting, she paints and scans watercolors to turn into fabric patterns. She’s industrious, optimistic, and hard-working. I have no idea whether her own company will take off or if she’ll get a great job somewhere, but I know that she’s going to do well.

Today we arrived at our grandparents’ house in Boston to visit for a week. This is a tradition that we’ve had for at least twenty years, maybe forever. She couldn’t wait to tell our grandparents about getting her own client, or the other independent work she was doing.

My grandparents, like most grandparents, have been around a while. They grew up poor but worked hard, started a business, and become successful. Many of their descendants are entrepreneurs, and we can all certainly trace some of that back to them.

But when my sister told them about her business, they balked. They told her that she should focus on getting a job. And more importantly, they said, she should find a rich man to marry.

Our cousin, sure there was a misunderstanding, asked, “So you don’t want your granddaughters to be strong independent women?”

“Honestly? No, not really.”

My grandparents are some of the most generous and kind people I know. Their lives have been largely dedicated to their family, and they’re the first to sacrifice their own desires for those of their family. They’re great people whom I respect immensely. So why would they be so hurtful to my sister?

The best theory I can come up with is that they’re out of touch. What do they really know about today’s job market or entrepreneurial scene? How many female entrepreneurs, other than my mother and both aunts, do they know? Isn’t their advice pretty solid for, say, a woman in the fifties?

I think the mistake they made was to not discount their perspective with time. We can argue about whether it’s for the better or worse, but we can all agree that the world is constantly changing. No one person could ever expect to keep up with it all. Why would my grandparents have relevant timely perspective on today’s job market? They’re in their eighties and have other things to think about.

This isn’t to pick on old people; the idea is universal. The things I knew a lot about last year are slightly less accurate now. I knew a lot about video games in high school; now my opinion on them is worth nothing. Even my ideas on things like nomadic travel and pickup are dated. I was somewhere near a pinnacle in both, but I’m not anymore.

I saw how much my grandparents’ advice impacted my sister, and it reminded me of the care that must be taken when giving advice. Is the person ready to hear this? Is this constructive? Do I honestly still know what I’m talking about? It feels good to give our opinions and to be confident, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best thing for the other person. Let’s be honest about what we do and don’t know, and discount our perspective as it drifts from the present.

###

Photo is sunset outside my window here in Las Vegas. Heading to DC tonight!

I wrote this a little while ago– my sister ended up finding a great job a week or two later.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *