Change your perspective and you change your world: Life Skills ebook preview

“Reality is merely an illusion… albeit a persistent one.” Albert Einstien

The perspectives we form over the duration of our lives are the building blocks for the way in which we deal with life problems.  The cornerstone of anything we believe is based on a perspective or in simpler terms an illusion we have created.  Simply stated: life problems do not exist without a person there to give it meaning.  It’s true that we may inherit or have characteristics given to us that we are not responsible for, genetically speaking of course.  However, I argue strongly that most people create their own problems by the things they believe.

A very learned colleague of mine once said to me that if I had the problem of trying to change a tyre on the highway and I couldn’t get it changed, then I would have a real problem.  On the other hand, if I change the tyre and get hit by a car while I am changing that tyre does the problem still exist?  No, now that I am dead the problem no longer exists.  I am on my way to glory now, no need to worry about the tyre something new has come into my perspective.  Therefore, a perspective is the view of something you think is a problem.

Wait a minute, I hear you say, that sounds a lot like the way in which I see things determines how I will shape my world.  Yes, if you put the book down now that would be a key lesson.  However, that’s not really what a perspective is.  A perspective can be likened in the natural world to looking through a window out at something in the real world.  The world exists, sure enough, at least as far as we know it does.  There is little evidence to suggest otherwise.  In like manner the way in which you build things in the essence of your mind is directly related to what you think is likely to be problematic and what you will think is an issue to you.

For example, we are told constantly that a positive attitude is good, have a positive attitude.  My response to this is not why but how?  How can I be positive and what perspectives do I currently harbour that are related to why I now have a negative attitude?  Most people do not go beyond surface learning past the conditions they have in their minds to the substance of what they believe.  This substance is the perspective you have.  The substance of what you hold dear to you is the core part of your perspective and this shapes and builds the world which you now inhabit.  There are probably some very good reasons why I have a negative attitude.  They are not related to my outside world though because at heart I know these are those things that I believe.  What I believe in the inner part of my being are the deep substantial things that I use as the building blocks of the world around me.

A perspective is not an actual thing but it does result in actual things.  A racist is someone who holds deep down perspectives that are racist.  The way they act towards those on the outside of their own culture, is not determined by anything other than there perspective.  That is not real in the sense that a chair is real.  It is however, real in the sense that it has real observable effects on that person’s behaviour towards people of opposing cultures and ideals than their own.  That racism exists in their mind as a way of seeing things that distorts unfairly the view of those of opposite skin colour or race.  This is one of the most hideous monsters of humankind that we can do this to each other but these differences are deep rooted perspectives that are ingrained in us.

In Alfred E. Cliffe’s book Let Go and Let God, he tells the story of people who lived in a time when it was thought that tomatoes were poisonous.  Those that ate those tomatoes died.  In the same book he also tells the story of people, who under hypnosis, were told that they had horrible burns on their hands only to have blisters emerged on their hands as a result.  A perspective is substance, not necessarily the actual substance of things like humans are made from, or the substance of the air but those things that form our perceptions are indeed substance.  They are real and they affect the way in which we deal with our life problems.  The famous Stanford Experiment shows that perspectives are formed when certain conditions exist.  For those who were called ‘guards’ they took on the perspective of guards and those that were prisoners take on the perspective of prisoners.

It’s therefore important to recognise that we have perspectives about things that we think are useful to us.   A perspectives shapes our understanding of things and tells us how to interpret it.  These things are not ‘out there’ as such, although they are, they are built into us.  The way we dress, who we marry the lives we end up living are the result of our perspectives.  Some people have caught onto to this and have created things like The Secret for example that puts forward the idea that a change of perspective (to a more positive mindset) will give amazing results.  All these people are drawing on is the idea that humans recreate the things they believe in on a continual basis.   In other words, if you are looking for something positive chances are it’s already there, you can’t see it because you have been drawing from a well of negativity.  Sometimes the opposite is true – when you look at something from a purely positive point of view you will see positives and negative things can come along and you may not even be aware of them, hence cults form.
It’s important to note your own perspectives and the things you deeply believe because these frame the world you live in and give it meaning.  Others hold different opinions about the world they live in and have a different perspective.   What is it you believe about work?  Remember you are what you think you are and what you think shapes the way you relate to the outside world.  What happens when we apply our way of thinking to the world around us?

This is special preview excerpt of an up and coming FREE e-book called “Solving Life Problems: 5 Essential Life Skills you need to make it.”  The book will be released shortly. Sign up to my feed to get the latest updates.

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