As a boy, I was making my way through Steve Covey’s book, 7 Habit Of Highly Effective People, when I came across this photo.
I looked at it for a while and tried to see the young lady. It took me a while, but eventually I saw her. Do you see her?
Wow, what a paradigm shift! This way of looking at things has stayed with me into adulthood, and I try it out on many things.
You
know how when you move to a new neighborhood you see the whole place in
one way, and then after a year or two, it looks familiar and different?
But if you stop long enough, probably on a leisure walk and think back
to the way the environment looked when you first moved there, you can
still see the old perspective — that’s a paradigm shift, too.
As
someone once said, nothing is ever as if first appears. There 2 ladies
in the photo above. The old lady looks haggard, worn, and gloomy— not a
positive outlook and her countenance is down-ward.
But
simply shift perspective and you see the pretty young young woman, her
finely defined jaws, and her hopeful outlook into the future. All it
took is a simple shift!
As
the year comes to a close, take time and look back on the past year and
see what has changed in your life. How are you different from when the
year started? Do you see things differently? Is your perspective
positive? If not, what can you do about it?
Surely,
I hope you don’t look at your life and see no positives. They are
always there, waiting for your recognition. They are there. You even
have a story to tell from your experiences from 2015 alone. You picked
up lessons, whether you had a hard time of it, or things worked out
perfectly.
Yet,
if you are still struggling to see it, it’s a good time, this time of
the year, to take some alone time and wipe your perspective clean. Are
negative emotions blurring your ability to see the positive? Are some
unpleasant experiences getting too much space in your heart and mind?
All these have no power over you.
Just as you would take a wipe and wipe off foggy glasses, so can negativity be wiped off with a good dose of light and positive truth. Also, if you need to, pray — for with God nothing is impossible.
Here’s to a great year in 2016! Keep God in the first place, trust in Jesus, and lean on the holy Spirit.
And
at all times keep the right perspective, and no matter what happens,
know you can always shift your perspective, get hold of a positive
paradigm, and turn things around.
In the end, nothing, absolutely nothing, is useless if seen or positioned right.
All the best!
