Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the door of perception. Aldous Huxley
In art, in order to draw something correctly we have to have the right perspective. In life, we also need the right perspective but life does not come with a set of guides like the perspective in art does. If you place your lines on a perspective grid your drawing will be in perspective.
What is the perspective grid we can use for life? Inflation is rearing its ugly head, everyone wants higher wages, and public unions are striking, what is the answer?
We are worried about the environment, and people are the ones causing the damage but we want more people to keep our economy going, what is the correct answer?
By worrying about the things I can’t change I am not focusing on what I can change. I’m going back to the gym, which I can do for my health and well-being. I’m working on my fourth book, my second children’s book and this is where perspective comes in as I figure out the proper perspective for this current painting.
Our Grandson is seven months old and we don’t have control of the world he’ll grow to inherit but we have some control over helping him develop into a fine young man with the strength to deal with the time he lives in.
I have a birthday coming and there was a time when I liked seeing the numbers go up but not so much anymore. This is my one go-around as it is for each of us. We have to make the best of what we have, our relationships, our opportunities, our finances, and our health. As times get more challenging, and we are all hoping they won’t, one way to make things harder for ourselves is when our relationships break down. If life is hard now as a family, won’t it be harder if we let the strain from outside break us?
Is there anything more beautiful than watching families get through things together, and anything more wretched than seeing people wreck their lives as they ruin their relationships? Sometimes it seems when we need others the most we find a way to cause strife, we want to lash out, but we still have to live lives we watch crash and burn.
Reject your sense of injury and injury itself disappears. Marcus Aurelius
We may be in for belt-tightening, but studies tell us that populations sometimes get healthier during times of belt-tightening. I could have left the ice cream and chips at the store yesterday, I could even have managed without the chicken that was on sale, and I could have made the chili without the meat.
The world isn’t fair, it’s never been fair. As my daughter holds her beautiful boy she hears about friends who have health concerns about their unborn baby. If we can make the best of what we have, in the time we are in, and leave the world in a good state for coming generations we should do it.
We all have a small part to play in that, we can’t do what we can’t do, and worrying about what we can’t do isn’t helpful. But, what can we do? When we look around our circle of influence how can we build up our family without tearing someone else’s down? What can we do to keep society moving forward in a good way for coming generations? What can we do to help foster trust in institutions so our society works?
What virtues and values can we teach our children and grandchildren to help them take their place in the world? One of the worst ideas we can believe is that we are near the end of society, the world, or civilization; because when we take that view we give up and think we no longer have to take the long view. If I get to almost one hundred like Mom, I want the next decades to be good. They can only be good for me if they are good for everyone else.
If our grandson lives in good times so will other people’s children and grandchildren. If he has opportunities so will other children. We need to do the best we can for the coming generations. We need a sustainable world. We don’t agree on what that will look like. Farmers have always known the land had to be looked after in order to grow crops year after year, and the same land couldn’t be used for the same crop every year.
I don’t know what it will take to have a sustainable world. Some of the greatest minds are working on this and we won’t always go in the right direction or make the right decision because we are human. But human ingenuity is a great thing, it has brought us to where we are and if each of us tries to make things better in our own sphere of influence we can accomplish great things. We can also choose to make things worse and how bad they can get we don’t know.
Perfection is the enemy of the good. We sometimes get disillusioned because things aren’t better than they are. What is our yardstick? Better than what, at least what we have is better than the chaos we could have. Maybe we can’t make things much better but we need to be careful we don’t make them worse. Do we even know what decisions will make something better, and what will make something worse?
Do we have the right perspective? It seems we only can see how things work out looking back and we make our decisions going forward. Hindsight is twenty-twenty but can we continue to develop foresight? Hasn’t much of the progress of the world been forward-looking?
You will always define events in a manner which will validate your agreement with reality. Steve Marboli
To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions. Stephen R. Covey
What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us. Rabin Alameddine
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
