Perspective

Our perspective is the way we see things, our point of view if you like. When we say ‘keep things in perspective’ this means “to think about a situation or problem in a wise and reasonable way” (Cambridge Dictionary 2020). Perspective is really a wonderfully simple concept – but at the same time it can be so complicated and difficult to realise when we lose it.

Life tends to throw a lot of things at us. In the quiet times we might stop and reflect on the things that haven’t quite happened how we thought they would, or how we’d planned them to, and also at how much has just gone inexplicably plain wrong (for us personally, or for those close to us).

It can at times be easy to get caught up in all the things that seem to be going wrong – these type of things can seem to hit us one after the other.

Our focus can start to shift onto the negatives – this can happen gradually, and possibly for the most part subconsciously – and before we realise it all we can see are the problems that lie before us looking like a minefield.  It can feel a bit like they’re just waiting for us to try and make a move, so they can blow up in our face.

As humans, we rarely tend to focus on the positives and think happy thoughts unless we really work at it. Unfortunately more often than not, if left unattended our thoughts will drift towards the negatives; to what’s wrong, or to things that we don’t have, or maybe things that we want.

Sometimes the things that we’re aiming towards seem very small and a long way off – just the way an artist would draw a sketch or paint a picture. This too is another type of perspective; a picture doesn’t make sense if what’s meant to be furthest away is bigger than what’s closest!

But there’s no reason why we have to view our goals in this way – maybe it’s better for us to ‘reverse’ the traditional perspective and to imagine the things that are far off, small and distant, as really close and big!

By doing this we can help to ensure that we don’t lose sight of our goals, whatever they are and to be grateful for what we have, regardless of what life may throw at us.

The Bible says “Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.” (Colossians 3:2, MSG)

What is this other perspective? If you’re interested, grab a Bible and check it out, or have a look at our website for some more info!

Reference:

“Perspective” Cambridge Dictionary 2020 https://dictionary.cambridge.org (10 March 2020)