Sometimes You Truly Need a Change of Perspective
Your point of view – no matter how broad you think it – is restrictive.
I pride myself on my ability to regularly see all sides of a given argument.
Even if I vehemently disagree with the other side – I can still see it. My side, their side, and sometimes even the absolute between or apart from both is evident.
However, it’s come to my attention that, even if I can see more than one side to a given argument, my perspective might still be skewed.
This is a very sobering realization. After all this time writing about how perspective is unique to everyone, and no two perceptions of reality are alike – I still found myself called out for my own skewed perspective on something deeply personal.
And that, of course, is why it’s skewed. My personal reality is from only my perspective. And if I hold it too tightly – when inevitable change occurs – I find myself either holding nothing or attempting to hold sand slipping through my fingers.
No two realities are alike
Albert Einstein said,
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
To me, what that means is that how I perceive reality is different from how you perceive it. The illusion of reality is variable due to you and I coming from different places, having different experiences, education, and the like.
There is a collective consciousness that just about everyone accepts to a greater or lesser degree. And even here, the illusion of reality varies.
Mostly, people agree that the sky is blue, grass is green, ice is cold, fire is hot, and so on. But there are variations even here. Colorblind people, for example, might differentiate the colors differently or not at all, and how you feel hot versus too hot might be different from how I feel them.
The point is that Einstein was correct. Reality is a very persistent illusion.
Despite living in the collective consciousness illusion of reality – all of us together – perception of it varies. But no matter how much it varies between you and me, each of us has only one perspective.
Thus, even if I can see both sides of a given argument or both sides of the extremes, I still have only one perspective I perceive them through.
When you fail to recognize your skewed perspective – you might need a change of perspective.
How does a change or perspective come about?
There are lots of ways to gain a change of perspective.
One way is by reading something that opens your eyes. Another is by conversation with someone that might show you their perspective in opposition or variation to yours. This can also just randomly occur via a new experience similar or dissimilar to something you think you know.
However, a change in perspective is a choice. Just because you read or hear something that opens your eyes and your mind to a new perspective – change won’t happen unless you act upon it. Choose to change or no change will occur.
Some people just hope things will happen that will wake them up if they are unaware. But the reality is that this is a choice. You can’t actively, consciously change if you don’t decide and choose to.
Furthermore, you can’t have a change of perspective when you’re not even aware of your own.
Conscious awareness of subconscious concepts
It’s unbelievably easy to think your perspective is the truth. That you know what you know – and so do others. This gets especially insidious over time.
But guess what? The things you know and have always known are subject to change. It’s inevitable.
I fell down this rabbit hole. For years, now, I’ve held a certain belief about someone with absolute surety. I thought I saw another perspective to them, but the truth is that my viewpoint had massively narrowed. Thus, I was seeing from a limited notion from a snapshot in time.
A conversation with a friend opened my eyes and my mind to this. My perspective and perception of the person and certain situations was skewed. The truth was that I lost perspective – and believed the path narrow and singular.
I am now aware of my viewpoint in a way I wasn’t. And I am a little embarrassed that I neglected my own practices and fell victim to closed-mindedness and subconscious notions not in and of the now.
Now that I have active conscious awareness – mindfulness – of my perspective, I can recognize it, acknowledge it, and change it.
The choice to do so is on me. And the decision if it’s worthwhile or not is mine as well.
Change of perspective for growth
I could have resisted the change of perspective I was shown. It was an idea, the viewpoint of another, that I could have rejected. I could have just stuck with what I knew, rejected the new angle, and continued as I did before.
Ah, but that was not serving me. My perspective was creating bitterness, anger, and resentment that isn’t serving me. This mindset of mine is making stress and negativity in my life that do me no good. So why hold onto it?
Sometimes you truly need a change of perspective. For me, this is one of those times. By choosing to change my viewpoint, I’m releasing unnecessary and self-harming negativity. I’m freeing my mind, my heart, and my soul to grow, evolve, and be better than I am now.
Does it seem like I’m overselling this? Perhaps. But when I accepted this new perspective, the change to my own lightened me. It was as if a weight that I had no idea I was carrying was dropped.
My perspective related to my personal illusion of reality was taking away good from my life experience. Since I can see that now, I am free to change my view and release unnecessary negativity.
There will need to be an ongoing, active choice in my change of perspective. It took time to build, so it will also take time to remove and replace. But to grow and be the best me that I can be, this change of perspective is utterly worthwhile.
Have you had an experience where choosing a change of perspective improved your life experience?
This is the six-hundred and second (602) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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