You can rarely turn on the news or look through your social media feed where the extreme opinions or perspectives are not being glorified. Extremes are where emotions are heightened, and awareness is most obvious. Extremes left unchecked and unfiltered with objectivity can lead to unhealthy perspectives. Extremes with a lack of perspective is what leads people in our world today to become intolerant of other views and leads to a society that is continually more polarized.
However, extremes are important. Extremes can help institute needed changes. Extremes can open your eyes to a view that is completely opposite of your normal mental framework of how something works.
Understanding the value of extremes can help us stay balanced.
The key to giving the extreme the value proposition they can bring to the table is keeping the extremes in perspective. The best way to keep one extreme in perspective is to consider the completely opposite extreme.
Generally speaking, neither extreme has the answer that is required to solve a problem effectively.
When you are considering the extreme position (relative to where you are) you will find your blood pressure elevating. As a great friend of mine and I would always say when dealing with personnel issues…” if you feel your blood pressure rise don’t act.” Once your blood pressure returns to normal, consider what took you to that place and then try to understand why.
Somewhere in this process you gain perspective and develop a broader perspective on the situation that you had previously helping you to be more balanced in your approach.
Think about it.