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Here
I am, fifty-eight, and I still
don't know
what I'm going
to be
when I grow up.
Peter Drucker |
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perspective
- perspective
3
perspective 4 |
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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 |
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Robert
Southey
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.
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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
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Nothing ever
is,
everything is becoming.
Plato |
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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. |
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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 |
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Melody Beattie
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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
John
Ruskin
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. |
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They
are wise people who do not grieve
for the things which they have not,
but rejoice for those which they have.
Epictetus |
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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 |
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| 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, is 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 |
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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 |
Nietzsche
The
surest way to corrupt young people is to teach them to
esteem more highly those who think alike than those who
think differently. |
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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 |
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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We
don't see things as they are;
we see them as we are.
Anais
Nin |
How
old would you be, if you didn't know
how old you were?
Satchel
Paige |
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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 |
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You see things;
and say "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and
say, "Why not?"
George Bernard
Shaw
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Whoever you
are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect.
There
is some work that will never be done if you don't do it.
There is
someone who would miss you if you are gone.
There is a good reason
for becoming better than you are.
There is a place that you alone
can fill.
anonymous
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We do not succeed
in changing things according to our desire, but gradually
our desire
changes. The situation that we hoped to change because
it was
intolerable becomes unimportant. We have not managed to surmount
the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken
us
around it, led us past it, and then if we turn around to gaze at the
remote past,
we can barely catch sight of it, so imperceptible has it
become.
Marcel
Proust
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Both optimists and pessimists
contribute to our society.
The optimist invents the airplane and
the pessimist the parachute.
Gil Stern
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Today
the greens are greener, the clouds are puffier,
the things that
are important are more important,
and the things that aren't
have gone way down.
a
man who escaped death |
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In
order to maintain a well balanced perspective,
people who have a
dog to worship them
should also have a cat to ignore them.
Peterborough
Examiner
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Climb up on
some hill at sunrise.
Everybody needs perspective once in a while,
and you'll find it there.
Robb
Sagendorph
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Slow
down and take the time to really see. Take a moment to see
what is going on around you right now, right where you
are.
You may be missing something wonderful.
J.
Michael Thomas |
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One does
not need to fast for days and meditate for hours
at a time to experience
the sense of sublime mystery
which constantly envelops us.
All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even for a brief
moment, a blossoming tree,
a forest flooded with autumn colors, an
infant smiling.
Simon
Greenberg
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Remember,
a small trouble is like a pebble.
Hold it too close to your eye and it puts everything out of focus.
Hold it at proper viewing distance and it can be examined and
classified.
Throw it at your feet and see it in its true setting--
just one more tiny bump on the pathway.
Barbara
Johnson
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For
many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer
and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them
I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again,
the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend,
the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain.
Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories
are made of.
If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid
enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far
richer
and more meaningful than we appreciate.
Rachel
Naomi Remen
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Each circumstance and event, tragic or happy, is
attracted to us by what we
have been and are, and in itself offers to us, by a right reaction to
it,
the opportunity of spiritual development.
Raynor C. Johnson
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An
adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
G.K.
Chesterton
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I
am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it
rains.
One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of
loveliness.
Adeline
Knapp
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