Perspective: A way of regarding situations, facts, etc. and judging their relative importance; to think about a problem or a situation in a wise and reasonable way; to compare something to other things so that it can be accurately and fairly judged.
There's the old story about blindfolding five people, then positioning them at various places around an elephant. The guy holding the trunk is going to have a much different perspective on the animal than the guy holding a tusk, and the guy right below the elephant's ass . . . . well, I don't know what to tell you. Same elephant, different perspective. I look at a thing and categorize it based on my education, knowledge, experience, etc. and the next guy looks at the exact same thing and sees something completely different.
My perspective used to be distorted by the bottle of beer I was peering through. Not a great perspective. The background that I could see was of a devil torturing bunnies; if I moved a couple of feet to the right I could see small, sylvan children feeding some bunnies. Same glass of beer, different perspective. I didn't know that I could move around a little bit and see something that seemed awful in a positive light. I've gotten to the place where I see pain and adversity as a strength, a pathway to greater knowledge and serenity, to wisdom, that unique marriage of intelligence and experience. I believe that Alcoholics Anonymous has helped convey to me a sense of the world as an imperfect place in which it is possible, nevertheless, to be happy. Not ecstatic, not euphoric, but happy. We can get to the place where we don't fear adversity and we don't crave pleasure. We have some perspective on what's going on.
It isn't good and it isn't bad - it just is.
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