Perspective

Optical illusions are awesome. Sometimes you see things, sometimes you don’t, it depends on how you look at it. You may be able to see the big picture, or the minutiae. That’s perspective, which is what we’ll discuss today. We’re gonna dive deeper into what perspective is, the importance of changing your perspectives, and how to do so.

In simple terms perspective is the way in which you perceive, or see things. In Think Create Inspire terms, because we don't do simple here, perspective is the lens that you use when looking upon a situation, yes I purposefully used convoluted wording, lol. Breaking the definition down though, it would be how you judge, and by judge I mean label or "adjectify" (add adjectives to, adjectify isn't a real word) certain situations or objects. Your perspective if you saw someone stealing would probably be, "that's bad, what a thief." or something along those lines, haha. However the thief's perspective may be, "I don't have the money to live to tomorrow." While I do not condone stealing, and believe that there is a way for everyone, that is just an example of perspective. As exemplified by the previous example, there are things that you don't see through your lens. However, like a microscope, or a camera, you can easily switch the lens. We'll get to how to do that in a bit, for now allow me to explain the importance of changing this lens. First, I'll say this straight out, you're not always right, you could be wrong, there's plenty of things that you could have wrong, even things you think are factual, may not actually be factual. For this reason you need to be able to change your perspective from, 'I am not wrong,' because that's what our brains are wired to do, to 'how could they be right?' You'll be able to see the other side of the coin. Then, by seeing the other side of the coin, you may find holes in this person's argument, by changing your perspective on the situation you can see how they're wrong, objectively, instead of subjectively. Second, changing your perspective could help in empathy, if you changed your perspective, and use the lens of the person you're talking to. You may find a scratch in their lens, if so, advise them on how to fix it, otherwise, you'll just better understand the person, and where they're coming from. In telling you how to change your lens there's a specific lens I'd like to tell you to switch to. Instead of switching to the lens of the person, people, or 'group' you're talking to. I would like to tell you to switch to the perspective of a 'spectator' as I call it. This is a body that doesn't have anything to do with the situation, and only sees the situation for what it is objectively, this works wonderfully in arguments, or disagreements. The reasons I'll tell you about switching to this instead of the one, or ones you are addressing is because first; you need to understand the other person a little bit, and their position to change into that, and that requires more instruction than I can offer in this coming paragraph; Second, it is very effective and can help you see the downright stupid things that are happening in a situation. With that said, this is how to do it, and it's definitely easier said than done, because of the third step I'm about to tell you. First, calm down, suppress your emotions on the situation, whether it be anger, sadness, happiness, or anything else in the spectrum; second, close your eyes, and think about the situation, this should be done concurrently with the first step, if not following very closely behind; third, apply the facts of the situation to your empty understanding of what you see before you. Now the reason this is so hard, is because your own emotions will, more likely than not, leak into applying these facts, which you cannot allow. After you do those three things, all that's left to do is calmly, and objectively, assess the situation, and see what's wrong with it, and how it could be fixed. That's all I have, this was a brief overview, and you'll probably find different ways of doing it through experimentation, so have fun with it, but that's all.

What lens do you look through? Whatever it is, it’s important to keep it clean. I hope you enjoyed and have a better grasp on perspective, what it is, the importance of changing it, and how to do so. There’s something on both sides of the coin for a reason. Anyways, have a wonderful week, I’ll see you the next, peace.

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#philosophy