Hey, you’re not WRONG!
Your Perspective is just different.
Perspective. It’s a strong word. Overused yet underrated.
“All you need to do is look from a different perspective.”
“Have you thought as the other person here?”
“Maybe it’s the way you look at it, you need a different angle.”
We all know these sentences work most of the time. But the question is, why do they work?
I should not just rush into the topic here. Let’s start with the basics, ‘What is perspective?’, or, to be more precise,
What is “my perspective” on the topic “perspective”?
Well, a point of view. That’s all. That’s what perspective is. As simple as it sounds, it can get really complicated to actually understand this concept. Why? Because it’s really that simple.
I might be losing your interest here, so let me help you with this.
Every corner gives a different perspective of the world, and perspectives are in every corner of the world. Be it photography with all those distinct angles or be it music with different genres that were composed to let you experience a different mood, everything has got a perspective of it’s own. Let’s just look at a field suppose art in which a good perspective is what earns acceptance for your work.
It’s all lines. That’s how perspectives are made in art. The lines start from an origin and you get a 3D image in a 2D canvas. It sounds simple until you’re asked to add more lines. And more lines. And keep on adding them till your paper is filled with lots of lines cutting each other and making no sense to anyone other than you, the artist. That is how perspectives work in life too. Simple yet hard to understand when it’s not your own. And when it’s so simple to you, you make less effort to convey it to others, giving rise to difference of opinions, arguments and fights.
One of the features of perspective is that no two people have the exact same perspective. And with that difference, you can either create a new perspective or a new problem. The invention of telecommunication for example was someone’s perspective, so was the invention of wireless connections. Together we got the wireless communication. It’s easier when two perspectives compliment each other like this, but when they are contradictions, it’s the perspective with a structure to back up that gets the nod from people.
Take for example the shape of Earth. “The Earth is flat” was a perspective. “The Earth is round” was another. But when Eratosthenes or Pythagoras or Columbus (or whoever proved it) backed their statement with proper proofs, or let’s say “gave an outline to their perspective”, people believed them. Their perspective became the common one. Everyone agreed that the planet we live in is a sphere (excluding the ones who still for some reason see it through another perspective).
Speaking about spheres, let’s go full circle to the question I raised at the beginning, why does the knowledge of perspectives change a person’s mind?
“Oh yeah! Maybe I was wrong this whole time. That person deserves more with what they’ve been through.”
“What they’ve been through.” ‘They’ is the focus word here. We think like ‘them’. We become a different person for a short time, during which we virtually go through what they went through in their life. And that’s why perspectives work.
As humans we give a lot of care to ourselves. We’re born as one, we die as one. Whatever happens in between is all part of us, part of our lives. And when we become another person, it’s a small moment in which we’re the same person with a different life. But that life gets kind of programmed inside our head and when we’re back to normal, it affects our decisions.
People wonder how someone can control their anger so much. They don’t. They just have a wider perspective which gives them enough reasons to not be angry in the first place. They just know what happened was because it was right in someone else’s view.
When we say they have a bigger heart, it kind of means they just have a bigger perspective.
I’ll give you another case where perspective matters. Imagine a 4 year old child. Imagine them crying, really hard, over the slightest thing, like their crayon breaking. Now imagine a 40 year old crying for the same reason, it seems ridiculous right? But both have the same reason to be sad, it’s just that the kid doesn’t know that there’s a world outside of their headspace, in which getting another crayon is really simple. Now take the 40 year old, and imagine them crying for losing their business. Makes sense right.
Oh, so am I saying losing a crayon is the same as losing your business to which probably a family depends on? No, but the affect it has on your brain could be the same, depending on your perspective. That’s why, we should respect everyone in the same way, just for the fact that what’s inside their skull isn’t the same inside yours.
But then, everything has exceptions and not all the things we do or think can be justified by saying it’s just another perspective.
I strongly believe that controlling your perspective is a really effective way to resolve conflicts. I feel every emotion, be it friendship, happiness, grief, anger, respect and even love, is just a perspective, which if you try hard enough can be controlled. I feel the whole point of hyping up this small logic of ‘perspective’ would be of no use if all of you reading this don’t understand that you can control both ‘what you think’ and ‘how you think of it’.
If you realize that, then even in the darkest times, you can find light, if you just remember to switch your perspective.
I feel there would come a day when everyone around us starts understanding everyone else and instead of finding reasons to fight, they will start finding reasons to be happy, together.
Interesting, huh? Read our ‘Thought Trains’ section for more such intriguing and wondrous articles! Here’s a fun one on Ego:
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