Perspective on Life

If two people are involved, I have always thought there were three sides to a story. Each person has their own take on the situation, and somewhere in the middle is probably the truth. I am not suggesting that every one lies of course. What I am saying though, is that each person has their own view. Regardless of who we are, we all have a perspective on the events that unfold in our lives.

Two people can see the same scene, but they may not necessarily have the same image in their head. Their perspective can be completely different. And based on their values, moods, experiences and vantage points, they may have a completely different view than the other person looking at the same thing.

For example, take a look at the iPhone pictures below. They are all taken within just a few feet of each other. I was standing on a pier in Jamaica in May and staring at the sunset. It was breathtaking. So I walked around taking different views of the moment. None of them are a lie. None of them are wrong. They are just different.

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Of course, for this challenge (Sally D’s Phoneography Challenge ~ Editing and Processing), I enhanced the pictures a bit in Photoshop. Each of them are either saturated or desaturated in color and adjusted for brightness and contrast. The facts of the pictures are still the same, but I tweaked them. To me, editing a picture is similar to what we do to our memories. We apply our own “filters” to the scenes in our head. We use our experiences to translate the moment. And we gauge the situation with our knowledge. Once we put all those factors into the mix, our perspective on the scene could be entirely different than the person at our side.

Knowing and respecting the difference in perspectives is critical in relationships too. If you can try to visualize the scene from someone else’s perspective, their actions may just make more sense. We could appreciate another point of view. We may learn something new. Or, we might just find their stance more appealing. But even if we found none of those things, just imagine what the world could be like if we all took the time to at least view the world through the eyes of another. We just may act with more compassion and understanding.

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For Sally D’s post this week, click here.