Perspective

If you’ve ever taken an art class, eventually you’ve probably had to study perspective. Drawing things as the appear in space. Check out this amazing piece of chalk art.

Viewed from the proper angle and it looks as if a 3 dimensional giant snail is crawling up behind the poor unsuspecting person on the bench. Of course we know it’s an optical illusion, the artist drew the piece in such a way that viewed from one point of view, his art popped right off the sidewalk.

But look at the lower picture, viewed from another angle the image looks broken, distended and distorted. This is a piece of art that can really only be viewed from one perspective.

It’s kind of like life. We view life from the perspective of where we are on our journey. Someone else looking at things from a different angle, a different perspective might see them totally differently. We need to remember that. In order to get people to see things our way, sometimes we have to make the effort to bring people to where we are.

For example, someone who views life from a different faith perspective may see an issue completely different from the way you see it. Try to force them to see things from your perspective won’t do a lot of good. They have a different point of view. They see things from a different angle. What do you do? Love them where they are, understand that they see things differently and work to help them come to where you are, to see things from the same point of view.

Perspective doesn’t just work with faith. I used to want to scream when I’d hear adults tell kids that their teen years are the best and easiest years of your life. You may see that from your perspective, but from their perspective there are a multitude of trials and adjustments that they face without the benefit of years of experience. Likewise from your older point of view, you can no longer see the trials as you once experienced them. It does you no good to force them to see things as you see them, you need to help them get to where you are.

Perspective is the way we see things. Sometimes all we need to do to see things better is move a little to the left or the right. Love people where they are even when you disagree. It might just change your perspective.

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