perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
perspective 5 - perspective 6
  

There is an old story about a man who wrote to the department of agriculture
in his state to find out how to cope with the crabgrass that was spoiling his lawn.
The department responded with a number of suggestions.  The man tried them all,
but he could not completely eliminate the crabgrass.  Exasperated, he wrote the
department again, noting that every method they had suggested had failed.  His
yard was still riddled with crabgrass.  He got back a short reply:
"We suggest you learn to love it."
   This is the art of reframing, redefining something so that it is no longer as
problematic.  It isn't the situation that is changed, of course; it is
your perspective on the situation.

Robert H. and Jeanette C. Lauer

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Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.

Richard Bach

An archer competing for a clay vessel shoots effortlessly, his or her skill
and concentration unimpeded.   If the prize is changed to a brass
ornament, the hands begin to shake.  If it is changed to gold, he or she
squints as if going blind.   The abilities do not deteriorate, but
belief in them does, as he or she allows the supposed value of an
external reward to cloud the vision.

Chuang-tse

There is no danger of eyestrain from
looking on the bright side of things.

unattributed

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

G.K. Chesterton

It is not the eye that sees the beauty of the heaven, nor the ear that
hears the sweetness of music or the glad tidings of a prosperous
occurrence, but the soul, that perceives all the relishes of sensual
and intellectual perfections; and the more noble and excellent
the soul is, the greater and more savory are its perceptions.

Jeremy Taylor

Hey mister, where you goin' in such a hurry?
Don't you think it's time you realize
There's a whole lot more to life than work and worry
All the sweetest things in life are free
And they're right before your eyes?
You've got to stop and smell the roses
You've got to count your many blessings every day
You're gonna find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road
If you don't stop and smell the roses along the way

Mac Davis

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but
we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a
seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.  When
it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature
and underdeveloped, nor do we criticize the buds for not being open
when they appear.  We stand in wonder at the process taking place,
and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.
The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies.
Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be
constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each
moment, it is perfectly all right as it is. A flower is not better when
it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same
thing--a flower in the process of expressing its potential.

Timothy Gallwey

   
 perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
perspective 5 - perspective 6
   

Our individual point of view is changing all the time.  For instance, my world
when I was nine years old was completely different than when I was thirteen,
or seventeen, or when I became a father, or when I became a surgeon, or
when I became a shaman.  In this way, my world keeps changing all the time,
and the same is true for you.  Every day, every moment, you change your
perception of the world, and it changes constantly as you change.
However, there is a part of you that does not change.
Can you find that part inside yourself?

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Little Book of Wisdom

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Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or a twig,
and then, clinging to the very end, revolve in the air,
feeling for something, to reach something?
That's like me.  I am trying to find something out
there beyond the place on which I have footing.

Albert P. Ryder

When the outlook is steeped in pessimism,
I remind myself, "Two and two still make four,
and you can't keep humankind down for long."

Bernard M. Baruch

Being disabled gave me an immense advantage.  People are kinder
to you.  It puts you on a different level than if you go
into a situation whole and secure.

Dorothea Lange

When you are annoyed at someone's mistake, immediately look at
yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in thinking that
good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame.  By being mindful
of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you realize that
the person was under stress, and could do little else.
And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.

Marcus Aurelius

When we have a compost bin filled with organic material which is decomposing and
smelly, we know that we can transform the waste into beautiful flowers.  At first,
we may see the compost and the flowers as opposite, but when we look deeply,
we see that the flowers already exist in the compost, and the compost already exists
in the flowers.  It only takes a couple of weeks for a flower to decompose.  When
good organic gardeners look into their compost, they can see that, and they do not feel
sad or disgusted.  Instead, they value the rotting material and do not discriminate
against it.  It takes only a few months for compost to give birth to flowers.

Thich Nhat Hanh

What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things looked at patiently from one side after another
generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating;
there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin

We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is.  Someone--our parents,
teachers, analysts--hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right"
way.  These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings
and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language
or hear it saying other things to us.  The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that
we become undeaf, unblind, and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to
us in new voices and write all its possible meaning in the new book of our
existence.  Be careful in your choice of hypnotists.

Sidney Jourard

Learn to see what is in front of you,
rather than what you learned is there.

Stephen C. Paul

To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time
again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground
for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary,
and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice
at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that
where you wish to be is where you have already
been. . . and always were.

Neale Donald Walsch

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good
for the world.  And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that
we could know with any certainty what was good even for us.  We have fulfilled
the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our
behavior toward the world--to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and
every living thing in it.  And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error
has become clear.  It is not only our own creativity--our own capacity for life--
that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled.
  
   We have been wrong.  We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to
live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for
us.  And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn
what is good for it.  We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to
its limits.  But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the
creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon
arrogance and stand in awe.  We must recover the sense of the majesty of
creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.  For I do not doubt that
it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that
our species will be able to remain in it.

Wendell Berry
The Art of the Commonplace

The people who say you are not facing reality actually
mean that you are not facing their idea of reality.

Margaret Halsey

Do you ever realize that you are now actually living the life which looked
so rosy and radiant with promise in your childhood and adolescence?  Do
you recognize in the days and weeks as they slip by that iridescent dream
of the future, which then enchanted your youthful fancy, as a mirage in a
desert charms the senses of the weary traveler?  Do you ever stop to think
that the time you are now trying to kill is the very time you once looked
forward to so eagerly, and which seemed then so precious; that the moments
which now hang so heavily on your hands are the same that you then
determined should never slip from your grasp until you had
extracted from each its fullest possibilities?
Why does what looked like paradise to you when viewed through youth's
telescope now seem but a dreary desert?  Because your vision is distorted.
You are looking at your environment from a wrong point of view.  You are
disappointed, discontented and unhappy, because you did not find the fabled
bag of gold at the foot of the rainbow, while you go on squandering,
in useless repining, the time that, properly used, would convert your
present seeming desert into the paradise of your early dreams.

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living