Gain Perspective through Healthy Patterns

by Theresa Birmingham

One of the most difficult skills in life is the ability to gain perspective and to not only gain it, but to hold on to that hard-earned skill. Basically, just like anything else in life, perspective is not a once-in-a-life “Oh, I’ve got it” type experience. In order to truly gain perspective, one must understand that each day is a gamble, and we choose how we will react, how we will understand, and how we will move forward in a given situation.

Triggers

We’ve learned that sometimes those flaws we see in others are actually flaws that are within ourselves. When we change our perspective, we can understand that everyone has a path. With this understanding, we often find that our judgments are many times the product of self-fulfillment or projection. We hate that quality because we do not like that quality in ourselves. We can change this by truly focusing on how we want to change, setting goals for ourselves, and always practicing introspection. View Can our triggers help change our perspective of self? here!

Campus Life and Perspective

Through the thick and the thin, many of the people who stay with us in life are those we’ve met in high school and college. Our college and high school friends not only show us where we’ve been but how we’ve grown to be in our current state. They are the relationships that helped us grow into the people we are today. It is not just our relationships in those arenas which helped us, though. It is the fact that as we grew and changed, we were forced out of our sheltered world and had to start making decisions for ourselves. Because of this, our perspective changed. Maybe we started to relate to our parents or our siblings better. We might have even begun, through a radical mashup of life circumstances, to understand that our perspective is not always right. We need to think. Share. Change. Read more in Joseph Gonzalez’s article College fosters a perspective of self-expression essential for adulthood.

Challenge your perspective

There were quite a few articles this month that truly lit a fire under us to say, “Hey, I can do that!” And not only that we “can,” but that there is a definite need in our culture and in our lives to adjust our lens and gain perspective. Whether dealing with the challenges of a difficult disease, attending college, in prayer/meditation, or when dealing with a break-up, it is important to understand where others are coming from. It is important to understand that being right isn’t always the most important piece. In fact, one could argue that the most important skill is that we gain perspective on a daily basis. When one is able to live with this skill, they are able to hold onto love, humility, integrity, and other positive and spiritually important life lessons and/or ideals.

Up next on The Daily Key

For the month of March, we tackle Ego — the perfect follow-up to a month of learning to gain perspective and see the other side. Once we have gained that skill, we, in fact, will have a healthier ego.