A Matter of Perspective

Often in life we are too busy to take a moment and look at things from a different perspective, whether that perspective is ours, or perhaps someone else’s point of view. Harvey Mackay said “When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It’s all a matter of perspective.”  The perspective you select is a choice.  Yet far too often we allow ourselves to be the victim of our unwillingness to step back, move, and look at things from a different point of view.

Pictures of Perspective

That’s one of the things I love about photography… looking at something differently.  You see, photography allows me to get a new perspective on something I may have seen so many times one way that I’ve become blind to it. In the movie “Dead Poets Society”, English teacher John Keating (played by Robin Williams) inspires his students to stand on a desk in order to see the world from a new perspective.  “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.”

Close to my home is a water detention pond. It was built to hold water in the event of a flooding rain.  On nice days, I take walks in the field to clear my head – and I never forget my camera!  Most who pass by only see a field of emptiness.  However, because I am willing to slow down and change my perspective – even lie down on the ground – I am able to see new things that many will never get to see. There are times when my neighbors or passersby must think I’m crazy – crazy because I am out lying on the ground, squatting at a funny angle, or zooming in close on something they can’t see.  I’m doing all of this not because I am seeing something they can’t see, but rather I am taking the time to see what they are missing, or perhaps what they won’t see. I am being intentional about viewing something from a different perspective, and in effect I am seeing things those who don’t choose to see will miss.

Practice your perspectives 

Practice seeing new perspectives.  Make a choice within the next 24 hours to look at something in a new or different way. It may be a place or thing, or it may even be a situation. Let me suggest a few ways you can change your perspective:

1. Stand on a desk or ladder…
2. Slow down…
3. Change your position… Sit in a different place, or in someone else’s chair or position…
4. Walk on the opposite side of the street…
5. Take a different route home…
6. Ask yourself how someone else might see or feel in a given situation…
7. If you have a persistent problem that you have been stuck in, ask yourself how you might be able to look at it from a new point of view…and then choose do it.

Changing perspectives changes things

Perspective is a way you can change anything! After all, if you want to see something change, maybe you simply need to change how you see something.

In The Journey Training , many people come in blind to so many things in their lives – because what you do every day becomes your normal, right? Month after month we see eyes opened to a new way of seeing thing, and in effect lives are changed. We’ve seen businesses revived, marriages healed, weight-loss, increased income, and so many other results of those who have chosen to take a weekend and change their perspective. Think about it, you don’t know what you don’t know until you see it. Why not take a weekend and see those things that may be holding you back from getting all you want in life! Why not begin your Journey Training in the very next Threshold class?