Blindness and perspectives

Although the week-long workcamp we just completed involved a tremendous amount of hard work, we looked forward to the evening programs with anticipation, as they provided an opportunity for fun, fellowship, and food for thought, as well as a joyful boost of energy at the end of the day. One night, our ebullient MC, Steve, talked about how we can be unknowingly blind, and how we need to change our point of view in order to have another perspective revealed to us.

A story he shared got me to thinking that we can be very comfortable and secure in our inability (or our unwillingness) to see other people or situations in a different light. We just know-without a doubt- that our crotchety old neighbor is on a mission to make our lives difficult, our child’s teacher is a control freak who spends her evenings thinking of ways to squeeze the love of learning from her pupils, and our boss is just plain mean, and devotes all of his waking hours to creating new ways to us miserable.

This perspective adds such order and satisfaction to our messy and chaotic lives, as it enables us to put people in neat, little boxes. (Yes, I do realize that you may be spot-on in your assessment of someone, but that is another post for another day.)

There are times, however, when we are given sight, when the hidden is revealed. We may not embrace it fully at first, as it rocks our world in an unsettling way. The voice in our head wonders, “I am wrong? No. Don’t think so. Can’t be. That would mean I am…wrong. I don’t like being wrong. I am always right.”

In my family we call this change of perspective “paradigm shifting without a clutch”, and it throws us, with much screeching and grinding of cogs, into a completely different gear. The voice in our head reluctantly notes,“Oh, I didn’t realize those circumstances in my neighbor’s life, my child’s classroom, or my bosses’ world.”

I know that I continue to plug away about perspective in my posts, but stay with me here, as it is a lynch pin in becoming too darn happy. Your comfort zone-what I have dubbed for this discussion as your “I just know” zone-can be a space as confining and constricting as your Great Grandmother’s corset.

It may be a small corner in which we stubbornly stay, facing the wall, and wonder whose fault it is that our view is so dim. I invite you to step up to higher ground, to an open space where we will gain a much wider view. That sweeping vista may cause some butterflies in the tummy, but it is certainly worth it. If we never look at people or situations from that fresh point of view, how will we ever grow and change in a positive direction?

Gather your courage and your walking stick today, and start moving towards that outlook.

And just in case you are wondering about that image: It is a fresh perspective on the trees that line my road. I set my camera to a slow shutter speed and swung it in a slow arc on a walk. Much of what I captured wasn’t worth keeping, but I thought this one was very interesting.