Perspectives

I see a story, you see a book

Lately I’ve been pushed to think about perspectives. We are so easily stuck in our everyday struggles that we, blindfolded, run through it without questioning ourselves. I believe that’s one of the most dangerous things that can happen to you, but to be able to break free from it you have to first see it. Unfortunately only a few people want to do that without having been forced by uncomfortable events or traumas. Why on earth would you stop your safe journey where the routes are known and no scary surprises will get you off track? No, of course you don’t want to! So the event that will finally push you over the boarder into the unknown will most likely have to be unwanted and painful. What then happens is that you are forced to change your perspective.

You will have to step out of your brain and your narrow vision and see yourself from someone else’s point of view. Or from your own, but shifted and from a different angle. By my own experience that requires some heavy focus and you will need to have balls to work your way through the first steps of this unknown mind-set. But after a while it will all clear up and the fact that you now own, not only one perspective, but a multitude of different visions is going to be gold in your life.

What happens if you are forced to change your perspective?

So next time you’re in pain and you’re forced to change your views and your mind, embrace that moment and work through the pain until you see why you had to.

 They dance up there –

awake is the house although midnight.

Then it suddenly strikes me that the ceiling,

my ceiling, is someone else’s floor.

Poem by Nils Ferlin

Freely translated by Jenny Grettve.

Albrecht Dürer's copper plate engraving Melencolia I, 1514.