The Value of Perspectives

I don't believe that all perspectives are equally valid. I don't even believe that all perspectives are necessarily helpful or valuable to moving us forward to solutions or finding common ground. I believe that some perspectives are dangerous, harmful, even damaging to our physical, emotional and spiritual health.

However, I believe that our ability to express ourselves ~ to show how we feel about ourselves and our environment is vital to our existence ~ and to our ability to move forward on our personal trajectory.

Learning to listen to how others express their perspectives; learning what other people believe and hold tightly to; learning how to discover what we believe ~ the thoughts and understandings we live with each day, make our decisions by without even knowing they exist in our psyche ~ these are the things that I believe help us to move forward. Perhaps we can move forward from our own dangerous, harmful and damaging perspectives.

I have lived many lives. I don't mean past lives and future lives not remembered. I mean I have lived many lives in this lifetime. My own perspective on many things ~ maybe MOST things, has changed over time and with experience. I watch as people I once knew as open-minded and forward-thinking begin to see things from a new, and not always progressive position. I see that things I believed in strongly at one time no longer seem important, or even real to me now. I see that things I believed were inherently evil were often times things I didn't fully understand. I see that things I think I understand take on entirely different perspectives when I learn just one new thing I hadn't considered before.

I think about the mistakes I have made in my lifetime. I think how awful it would be if everyone knew of all my mistakes. I think about how critical I can be about other people's mistakes.

I think about the people I admire, and I wonder what their mistakes have been. I wonder if my perspective of admiration would change if I were to become aware of their human foibles, their mistakes, their quirky perspectives that have surely changed over time, shaped by age and experience.

I hope to learn from my own musings here, and to learn from others who share theirs with me.

Here's to perspectives!