by Dave Wine, President & CEO

Change your view and your perspective changes.  I think of this often when I fly somewhere. When I am ‘on the ground’ driving in my car, my perspective is very limited.  Roads and streets don’t seem to have any design - they seem haphazard.  Communities are horizontally seen when driving so the ‘structure’ of the community is not seen.  Trees, hills, buildings and other things block our view.

But then our plane ascends and suddenly my perspective is brand new.   What was not seen before is now seen clearly.  I can see why roads are built where they were, how the interchanges work, how the communities are laid out, how much more order there seems to be in the fields, farms, and towns.  My perspective has changed and I see differently.

Perspective colors everything.   That is why one of my favorite statements is “I could choose to see this differently.”  No matter what we are seeing, feeling, thinking we could change our mind and change our perspective.  The world we see is really up to us because we can choose to see differently.  When something rocks our world, when things don’t go our way, when someone seems to be creating a problem for us, when work piles up, etc., there is always the possibility of changing our perspective.  It is not easy stuff.  Remember our brains are wired to look first for danger, problems and difficulties.

So it takes mindful attention, a willingness to pause just long enough to allow a new thought to come, asking things like, “is it true?”, “could this be seen differently?”, “what would love do or say?”, “who would I be without this thought?”   The most powerful questions are ones that you think of that might help you the most.  Sometimes you might think of yourself leaving the dance floor and walking up to the balcony and looking down at the dance of life to get more insight. Or flying above to look down on the issue.  Just visualizing that will sometimes give your mind the pregnant pause needed to change a perspective.

The key point is that we are in charge of our thoughts - no one else.  And our thoughts create our perspectives.  And perspectives color the world as we see it.  Doggone it! I’d much rather blame something or someone else!