We all see our lives the way we want to see them. If we want to see our lives as terrible and tragic then so it will be. If we want to see our lives as one glorious moment after the next then so it will be.

Perspectivism is not about being optimistic. I’m talking about appreciating the infinite views that your life has to offer and accepting all of them, which helps you understand that there is not any one perspective that you should attach yourself to, but that you should just experience all of them.

As I am writing this I’m dealing with the boss’s anger with me for making a small mistake with the alarm system at work. I’m used to setting that alarm when I leave, but I’m not used to dealing with arriving before anyone else does. So when I entered the building and deactivated the alarm (or at least I thought I did), it was already deactivated by a manager that had arrived before me. Once I realized she was there I thought I had activated the alarm. I didn’t want the cops to come so I asked around if the alarm’s key pad looked normal.

“Is it activated or not?” I asked a co-worker, flustered by my error.

“I don’t know!” she answered.

No one knew, so I asked a manager. She stopped what she was doing, gave me a mean look and got up to check the key pad. She didn’t know either. Her ugly look caused me to feel demeaned. Then perspectivism kicked in I began to see her point of view and how I would probably feel annoyed in her situation. Then I thought of the cop’s perspective who never got our call from the alarm company and was just sitting in his cop car enjoying a sip of coffee. He didn’t have anything to worry about. His ignorance was easy because he didn’t have my problems. I began to open my perspective to the myriad of views that the situation held. I saw this same situation as if I was 60 and independently wealthy, then I thought of myself as a monk who didn’t let others’ weird looks bother him. My fear of my boss lifted, my somber mood deflated before it took over and a slight smile, like I discovered the key to my happiness, creased my lips. I stepped back and experienced the event and all the feelings it created. Then in that very moment I realized that I was just attaching myself to these new feelings so as not to let the bad feelings take over. I also let this perspective release, walked to my desk and understood that my emotions are meant to cause a reaction and it was up to me to decide the level of my reaction or at least how long it would last.

When you can experience life as if it’s not directly affecting you, meaning that you are experiencing the moment and not letting it dictate your feelings, then you can open your feelings to multiple possibilities. You then are able let go of the emotions that each thought can create. Many of us think that life is affecting us, causing us pain or happiness, but in reality it’s our minds affecting life.

I was walking a back alley of my old University town, West Chester PA, with a friend I’ve lost touch with, but the memory and her lesson stays with me forever. Amy was having a rough day after getting an F on her midterm. A stray dog crossed from one yard to another. It had a limp and some nappy brown patches on its white fur from rolling about in something disgusting.

“What an ugly dog,” I commented, expecting her to agree with me.

“That dog was beautiful. All it needed was a bath,” she said.

This woman, in a crazy bad mood, could see the beauty in a stray dog that I couldn’t. Her perspective was the opposite of the one I expected. She was always one to surprise me.

“That dog probably rolled in crap and did you see that limp?”

“All it needed was some love,” she replied.

End of discussion.

The story still stays with me whenever I see something that I judge as ugly. I saw my manager’s face as ugly because she was angry at my error in judgment. Prior to the ugly dog conversation I used to think that my opinion was concrete. That dog was ugly because I thought so, but that didn’t make it the truth. It just made it one perspective out of billions. That’s perspectivism. The simple ability to see an event for everything it was, is and could be.

Anyone can fake a positive reaction and make themselves think that they see the event as wonderful, but they are only fooling themselves. My emotions fool me on a daily basis, causing me much pain and happiness.

I think I see a situation correctly when it makes me happy – wrong!

I think I see a situation incorrectly when it creates pain – wrong!

Each time my perspective understands a certain situation as one way or another – I understand that it’s just the tip of the event. I’m only human; I can’t see the situation from the viewpoint of a man who grew up in Moscow or a woman in a village of Argentina. I can only imagine the infinite views that any situation has within my own thoughts.

How many times have you become mad because of someone’s decision, then a couple of hours later realized you were looking at the situation from the wrong perspective?

Thousands?

Millions?

Maybe not millions, but probably way over a thousand. When you look back over a difficult situation maybe you realized that you let your emotions carry you to a place of anger. Perspectivism allows you to look at the situation, letting the feelings set in, and then be able to apply fresh angles to the situation. Once you balance out your emotions then you can see the situation for what it truly is – a complex experience that can be looked at in any way you choose.

Practice applying perspectivism to your life and watch the black and white emotions turn into a collage of colors that you can stroke like a master painter upon your life.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 7:37 pm and is filed under enjoy everything.