An Example of Controlling Perpective

Perspective is such an important part of our world because it plays a role in everything we do. When we relate to others, we judge their behavior through our own eyes. When we try to come up with a solution, we evaluate it’s viability with our own experience. And when we see something in front of us, we believe that’s the only way it can exists and draw major conclusions off of that information. A powerful example I’ve mentioned before is the shadow a cylinder gives off. With different configurations of light positioning and orientation, a cylinder can have a shadow that looks like both a rectangle and a circle. And the crazy part is, neither answer is wrong. That is the nature of perspective.

What is fascinating is how we can augment our own perspective to become better at seeing other perspectives. This requires gaining self awareness about the tendencies you have when processing information, and understanding that the information you are working with is limited and might not tell the full story.  In doing that, we can begin to change the narrative of our life a little bit.

This may be an extreme example, but it’s something I think adds value. Think of the act of getting fired. You likely were underperforming at work, and something wasn’t the right fit, so your company decided to cut their losses and let you go. Okay, but what if you think about this as getting paid to leave. The result is the same, but instead of internalizing the error you use it as a vehicle to take next steps and spin the change in employment as a positive thing. This is the power of perspective, and understanding that your perspective is limited to your own eyes is an extremely important piece to becoming more effective in life