quotations and passages on perspective

Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still
don't know what I'm going
to be when I grow up.

Peter Drucker

perspective - perspective 3 - perspective 4
perspective 5 - perspective 6

Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and
allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This paying-attention gives meaning
to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that careful attention
paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way,
even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day.

Robert Fulghum

As you take a few minutes each day to quiet your mind, you will discover a
nice benefit: your everyday, "ordinary" life will begin to seem far more
extraordinary. Little things that previously went unnoticed will begin to
please you. You'll be more easily satisfied, and happier all around. Rather
than focusing on what's wrong with your life, you'll find yourself thinking
about and more fully enjoying what's right with your life. The world won't
change, but your perception of it will. You'll start to notice the little acts
of kindness and caring from other people rather than the negativity and anger.

Jack Canfield

Nothing ever is, everything is becoming.

Plato

Richard Carlson

An excellent way to practice love is to set your attention on seeing beyond
someone's behavior or personality. Try to realize that beneath the surface insecurity,
negative thinking, and poor behavior, everyone is connected to God. Just as you wouldn't
get angry at someone simply because he or she is in a wheelchair, you need not
be angry because a person hasn't yet opened his heart to the nourishment of his Soul.
When people act in unloving ways, it only means that they are out of touch
with their Souls and aren't feeling spiritually nourished. When that happens,
there is no need to panic. The best we can do for ourselves is nourish
our own Soul by looking beyond the behavior we don't care for,
thus practicing the art of love.

We are all so bent and determined to get what we want, we miss the lessons that could be learned from life's experiences. Many of my AIDS patients discovered that the last year of their lives was by far their best. Many have said they wouldn't have traded the rich quality of that last year of life for a healthier body. Sadly, it is only when tragedy strikes that most of us begin attending to the deeper aspects of life. It is only then that we attempt to go beyond surface concerns--what we look like, how much money we make, and so forth--to discover what's really important.

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

I have told you of those who always
put on their spectacles when about
to eat cherries, in order that the
fruit might look larger and more
tempting. In like manner I always
make the most of any enjoyments,
and, though I do not cast my eyes
away from troubles, I pack them into
as small a compass as I can for myself,
and never let them annoy others.

Robert Southey

We are all at different stages of growth, so we each need different things
to trigger that connection to the soul. What works for me on any given day
might not work for someone else, or for me on another day.
Often, it is the basic things. I live ten feet from the ocean, in a small cottage.
I need to be by the water; I've spent a lot of my journey getting closer and closer
to this water. I need to remember, to get up in the morning and watch the sunrise
and take a moment at night to see and feel the sunset. I need to see the colors
of the sky; I need to feel the colors. I need to surround myself with music,
because my soul resonates to music. I've decorated my home with
the colors of the universe--bright colors. Color is light.
Colors help me feel alive, help me feel passionate, help me remember
that I'm here to be an alive, passionate human being.

Melody Beattie

William Feather

Here is the secret of inspiration.
Tell yourself that thousands and tens of people,
not very intelligent and certainly no more intelligent than the rest of us,
have mastered problems as difficult as those that now baffle you.

Clay is fashioned into vessels; it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends.
Doors and windows are cut out to make a dwelling, and on the empty space within,
its use depends. Thus, while the existence of things may be good,
it is the non-existence in them that makes them serviceable.

Lao Tzu

William
Blake

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others
only a green thing which stands in the way. To the eyes of people
of imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As we are, so we see.

I pictured a rainbow
you held it in your hands
I had flashes
but you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
while you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded
while you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth
you cut through lies
I saw the rain-dirty valley
you saw Brigadoon

I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings
you just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
you just knew
I sighed
but you swooned
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

Mike Scott
adapted from "The Whole of the Moon"
on the Waterboys' This Is the Sea

There are two worlds: the world that
we can measure with line and rule,
and the world that we can feel
with our hearts and imagination.

Leigh Hunt

All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved
for the imperfections that have been divinely appointed,
that the law of human life may be Effort,
and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

John Ruskin

They are wise people who do not grieve for the things
which they have not, but rejoice for those which they have.

Epictetus

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet,
than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

Epicurus

Without a doubt, the most valuable aspect of my life has been the period that I've lived in Europe. I've spent five years over there--almost two in Spain and over three in Germany. I've also spent four years in the army, and I've lived in every geographic area of the united states save the northwest. I've also spent over eight years in college, studying literature (especially world lit) and teaching English as a Second Language, which has also opened up my eyes to many different ways of looking at the world.

These things have been important to me because I've felt my eyes and my mind open up considerably, especially in the way that I'm able to see wisdom in the words of others. I've learned that there are many wonderful people on this planet, and I've had the great honor and privilege of meeting many of them, though you would have heard of none of them. But they're people I can learn from, if I but keep my mind open to their lessons, if I but listen--no, hear--when they speak, if I pay close attention when I read their works.

Living in so many places has helped me to see just how differently people from other places and cultures see the world, and just how valid their perspective is, no matter how much it may differ from mine. People in Spain tend to see relationships differently than people in New England, and the Germans tend to see work differently than people in Arizona. And that doesn't matter--neither group's perspective is wrong, and neither is necessarily a perspective that others should adopt.

Perspective can cause us to see a beautiful sunset as a boring, ordinary part of daily life, or it can help us to see the beauty in the many "ordinary" things that surround us. Almost everything we see or have access to is a miracle, either in its simplicity or complexity. The flowers that grow in our gardens have gone through an amazing process of turning from a seed to flowers. The rivers that flow are fed with water that has gone through an incredible cycle of evaporation, falling as rain, flowing to a certain area where it can join the river. The fact that I can write these words and put them on the internet so that friends I shall never meet in South Africa and Hong Kong can read them is one of the greatest miracles of our times, yet the internet has quickly become "normal," a tool for businesses to make more money.

But I've recognized something very important--I can refuse to see the world and the things and people in it as "normal"; I can choose to see the marvelous qualities of everything, but I have to work at it, for our societal norms tell us to value conformity and the status quo. I'll always look for the beauty in trees, the soul in the eyes of the people I meet, the wonder of the flowers that come out each spring, the loveliness of children at play. And I'll do so because I choose to do so, for those are the important things in life. I'm not here to make money or become famous--I'm here to love and to live. If I focus on that and maintain a great deal of responsibility (yes, i will work), then I can't help but live a full life, for there are many more rewards available to those who are easily satisfied and entertained, and I choose to be more than satisfied with the reward of a child's smile or a friend's "thank you."

tdw

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I am entirely on the side of mystery.
I mean, any attempt to explain away the mystery is ridiculous.
I believe in the profound and unfathomable mystery of life
which has a sort of divine quality about it.

Aldous Huxley

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is
the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Albert Einstein

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are
making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources.

William James

Through the eyes of our minds you and I look out at reality (ourselves, other people,
life, the world, and God). However, we see these things differently.
Your vision of reality is not mine and, conversely, mine is not yours.
Both of our visions are limited and inadequate, but not to the same extent.
We have both misinterpreted and distorted reality, but in different ways.
We have each seen something of the available truth and beauty to which
the other has been blind. The main point is that it is the dimensions and clarity
of this vision that determine the dimensions of our worlds and the quality of our lives.
To the extent that we are blind or have distorted reality, our lives and our happiness
have been diminished. Consequently, if we are to change--to grow--there must first
be a change in this basic vision, or perception of reality.

John Powell

In the family it is said Gabe "doesn't notice much--his head is in the clouds."
He accepts this criticism as complimentary: "In the clouds? Oh, thank you. I try."

Laura Cunningham

When people look only at the surface and that satisfies them
and they think from that surface they see, that is to be truly blind.

Beah Richards

There are long periods when life seems a small, dull round, a petty business
with no point, and then suddenly we are caught up in some great event which
gives us a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence.

Elizabeth II

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there
is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

John Kenneth Galbraith

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success
in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.

Samuel Smiles

You see things; and say "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and say, "Why not?"

George Bernard Shaw

The surest way to corrupt young people is to teach them to esteem more
highly those who think alike than those who think differently.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The aspects of things that are most important for us
are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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