Perspective

Everything depends on your vantage point.  I've been thinking about this subject of perspective lately.  As an embarrasingly simplified example, it's the difference between giving a kid a piece of candy and taking half of another kid's Halloween bounty.  One kid is happy, the other angry.  It's silly, but unavoidably true, and furthermore applicable to more of our lives than we'd like to admit.

Two years ago, I would have told you that the salary I make today would be luxurious to live on.  Today, I feel comfortable, but I'd be willing to bet that five years from now I would be feeling hopelessly endangered to make what I make today.  Are my needs changing that much?  Some things do, but not to the extent that we feel.  I see people who make six figures and they feel financially constrained because they have grown accustomed to such a lifestyle.

I don't feel the need to judge such a situation, because I imagine that someday it'll be me.  I'd like to think I will avoid this particular perspective trap, and always remember what it was like to be making $1000 per month in 2008, but as humans we like being comfortable.  I wonder how many other of life's situations this problem of perspective applies to?  At work I've moved from an open cubicle to a desk in the corner of a room to a larger desk still in the corner.  From this perspective, I'm not even sure what it'd be like to have an office with a door. Someday, however, that may be the norm for me!  How do we keep from letting our perspectives change so much?