It all started when I was doing some freelance transcription work on a course about 1-, 2-, and 3-point perspective in photography and art. I was amazed at the differences between the three and after some googling really began thinking about how I see things.
I recently came across a post online of a photographer taking a photo of the same image from two separate perspectives and it really drove home this thought I was having. Take a second to look at these before you read on:
http://themetapicture.com/famous-photos-from-a-different-angle/
I just had a conversation with a friend recently about perspective in life. They were saying that they were having a hard time with a certain individual and how all they could see was the negative in their life. No matter what it was, this particular individual could only see the absolute worst in their circumstance and situation, even if the issue wasn’t really all that bad. A quick examination of this person’s life showed that they were pretty isolated, didn’t have many friends, and had no relationship and interaction. It’s no wonder! They were living in a 1-dimensional view of life – their own. They had no other perspectives to draw a view from, and could not see the forest for the trees in their life.
Oh so many times we can all be in that place too. We are such busy people that our lives are consumed with our own schedules, demands, pressures, and the things we are lacking (time, money, and more). Every now and then, usually by happenstance or force, we will see a different world view than our own and think oh wow, I really don’t have it that bad I guess. It’s called perspective.
Remember the images in the link above? What had to happen in most of the photographs to get that second perspective? Some distance had to be created in order to see how small the first image really was. Oh if we could only learn to take a few steps back from our own insurmountable problems in our lives. I think we would be surprised what we could find just waiting in the shadows.