perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
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There is an old story about a man who wrote to the department of agriculture
in his state to find out how to cope with the crabgrass that was spoiling his lawn.
The department responded with a number of suggestions.  The man tried them all,
but he could not completely eliminate the crabgrass.  Exasperated, he wrote the
department again, noting that every method they had suggested had failed.  His
yard was still riddled with crabgrass.  He got back a short reply:
"We suggest you learn to love it."
   This is the art of reframing, redefining something so that it is no longer as
problematic.  It isn't the situation that is changed, of course; it is your perspective
on the situation.

Robert H. and Jeanette C. Lauer

You need only examine your present situation to discover unlimited
resources and opportunities.

Ari Kiev

Learn to see what is in front of you,
rather than what you learned is there.

Stephen C. Paul

When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see
what other people are coping with.  You may consider yourself fortunate.

Ann Landers

To view your life as blessed does not require you to deny your pain.
It simply demands a more complicated vision, one in which a condition
or event is not either good or bad but is, rather,
both good and bad, not sequentially, but simultaneously.

There is no danger of eyestrain from
looking on the bright side of things.

anon

Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that everything that God has created is potentially holy.
Our task as humans is to find that holiness in what appear to be unholy situations.
He suggests that when we can learn to do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls.
It's easy to see God's beauty in a beautiful sunrise, a snow-capped mountain, the smile
of a healthy child, or in ocean waves crashing on a sandy beach.  But can we learn
to find the holiness in seemingly ugly circumstances--difficult life lessons,
a family tragedy, or a struggle for life?

Richard Carlson

It is not the eye that sees the beauty of the heaven, nor the ear that hears
the sweetness of music or the glad tidings of a prosperous occurrence,
but the soul, that perceives all the relishes of sensual and
intellectual perfections; and the more noble and excellent the soul is,
the greater and more savory are its perceptions.

Jeremy Taylor

Hey mister, where you goin' in such a hurry?
Don't you think it's time you realize
There's a whole lot more to life than work and worry
All the sweetest things in life are free
And they're right before your eyes?
You've got to stop and smell the roses
You've got to count your many blessings every day
You're gonna find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road
If you don't stop and smell the roses along the way

Mac Davis

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it
as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required
of a seed.  When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature
and underdeveloped, nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.
We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs
at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies.
Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process
of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is. A flower is not better
when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing --
a flower in the process of expressing its potential.

Timothy Gallwey

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Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or a twig,
and then, clinging to the very end, revolve in the air,
feeling for something, to reach something?
That's like me.  I am trying to find something
out there beyond the place on which I have footing.

Albert P. Ryder

When you are annoyed at someone's mistake, immediately look at
yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in thinking that
good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame.  By being mindful
of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you realize that
the person was under stress, and could do little else.
And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.

Marcus Aurelius

When we have a compost bin filled with organic material which is decomposing and
smelly, we know that we can transform the waste into beautiful flowers.  At first,
we may see the compost and the flowers as opposite, but when we look deeply,
we see that the flowers already exist in the compost, and the compost already exists
in the flowers.  It only takes a couple of weeks for a flower to decompose.  When
good organic gardeners look into their compost, they can see that, and they do not feel
sad or disgusted.  Instead, they value the rotting material and do not discriminate
against it.  It takes only a few months for compost to give birth to flowers.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Celia Thaxter

What is a weed?  A plant whose
virtues have not yet been discovered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things looked at patiently from one side after another
generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up,
snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather,
only different kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin

We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is.  Someone--our parents,
teachers, analysts--hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right"
way.  These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings
and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language
or hear it saying other things to us.  The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that
we become undeaf, unblind, and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to
us in new voices and write all its possible meaning in the new book of our
existence.  Be careful in your choice of hypnotists.

Sidney Jourard

Anna was saying to herself:  why do I always have this awful need
to make other people see things as I do?  It's childish, why should they?
What it amounts to is that I'm scared of being alone in what I feel.

Doris Lessing