Ahhhh… I really like the word “perspective”. Have you ever stopped to contemplate the word “perspective”? I don’t know about you, but the word itself causes a shift in my psyche. Since we are each unique, we each come with our own “perspective” on just about everything. We go along most of the time not aware that everyone doesn’t see things the same way we do. That’s a conversation for another time. What I want to do now is stir up our minds to think about how we have been viewing problems or issues and see if we might “consider” seeing them from a different perspective.
When I was age three until about four and a half, I lived in Kansas in the basement of a big house that was known in town as “The Mansion House”. My dad turned it into a restaurant for a while. It was the biggest house in the small town. It had seven marble fireplaces, many bedrooms, bathrooms, a big kitchen, and a giant staircase! I didn’t see the house again until I was thirteen. I still remember my aunt, seeing the puzzled look on my face, asking me if it looked smaller than I remember. That was an understatement! I could not wrap my head around the fact it was the same house. It didn’t look big at all. Bigger than the other houses in the area yes, but small compared to the mansion in my memory.
I wonder, how many things in our past are not as big as we remember them? By “things” I am not just referring to houses or material objects. I mean experiences as well. As we grow and mature, we need to allow our perspective to change too. Perhaps that comment that still haunts you, wasn’t meant the way you took it. Is it possible that you can now see it from a different perspective? How many grudges, hurts, or fears are we lugging around unnecessarily? I encourage you to take a mental inventory and see if there are some things you can release. Maybe let yourself off the hook, or someone else off the hook. There is power and freedom in releasing old worn-out ways of thinking.
One of my favorite stories on perspective is about a little boy who received a new telescope. One day his father saw him looking through the wrong end. His dad tried to correct him telling him that he should be looking from the other end, the small end, as it was intended to make things look bigger. The little boy answered and said, “I know that Dad, but right now I’m looking at this bully. When I look at him this way it makes him so small that I’m not afraid of him anymore.” Wow! What a smart little kid!
I love this story because it reminds me that I have a choice of how I look at things. I get to choose which end of the telescope I look through. I can blow things out of proportion or I can minimize them and take back my power. I get to change my perspective as I grow through today. How about it? Are you ready to look at anything differently today?
Let’s go into today with a fresh perspective!