Perspective Changes Everything

M.C. Escher, The House of Stairs, 1951, Lithography

It is so easy to get bogged down in the details of life, especially when it’s seemingly not going your way. The transmission in our car went out, I was out with a cold, and we are sitting on a house that has been up for sale for almost six months. I’m sure we could drop the price further, but it seems like a bad decision for us at this point.
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Somewhere between car repair estimates and sneezes, I remembered that I have done much harder things than this. I have been in worse places, and I have dealt with worse things. Perspective changes everything. 

Yes, I want to sell this house and move. I am longing to choose my new house and make it beautiful and cozy, and exactly what I want. Because, believe it or not, I have never truly chosen my own living space. In Copenhagen in the aughts, there was such a housing shortage that you almost took whatever you could find. At least you did, if you weren’t independently wealthy at the age of 25. Once I moved to the US, my priority was to simplify my life so that I could devote all my energy to my music career. Sometimes the choice was mine, sometimes it was a lack of choices, but now, I am at a time in my life where choosing my home has become a very high priority for me.

Yes, it sucks to be sick or for the car to break down. Yes, it sucks that the market is stagnant and the value of our house has gone down. All are just things that happen.
But truthfully, it’s not so bad. I have a loving husband, the sweetest pup, and a full and comfortable life of creativity. I have a house with so much space that we have empty rooms sitting around. I have a flexible work schedule that allows me to plan my time however I want.

Both these perspectives are true descriptions of my life; they just differ depending on which angle you look at it from.  But does shifting our perspective truly change anything? I suppose from a pragmatic point of view, you could say, no. It doesn’t actually change anything. The car is still busted, the house is still on the market, and the coughing episodes are still a-plenty. So what does it matter how we look at things? It matters because, from a different perspective, we feel better about the situation. And if we feel better, things are better.

In the Abraham-Hicks paradigm, “all that matters is that you feel good.” In their philosophy, they believe that when you are in a negative emotional state, you can only create negative things in your life. When you “feel good,” you create good things. It sounds so simple to “just feel good”, but it’s about what you are attracting from your current emotional state. And simple doesn’t always mean easy.

So, from the perspective of fretting over unwanted things, the expenses, the stagnation, and the poor health, there are only downsides. For one, you feel horrible. And for the other, you can only create more of that - at least if you believe in the concept of the law of attraction. But from the perspective of gratitude for the good things in your life, you feel better in the moment, and there is at least a chance you will create more of that.  

There is always going to be something we don’t want to deal with. There is always going to be something to avoid. (Cleaning the house, anyone?) There are always unwanted things in our lives, big or small, that we seek to change.

I have found a lovely way to combat these nuisances in my day-to-day life. Given the freedom in my schedule, I often have the choice of what I want to do with my time. It would be tempting to simply ask, “What do I feel like doing today?” With this question, it is too easy (for me, at least) to fall into the trap of only doing the pleasant tasks and playing the ostrich game of burying my head in the sand with the other. But when I ask myself, “How can I make our lives better today?” It sometimes means cleaning the house, winterizing the yard, or even going to work and making some money to contribute to our family. But it also does something else. It helps me take my power back. It helps me look at ways I can improve our current situation, rather than focus on the things I can do nothing about, like the car that is in the hands of the mechanic and is out of my control. This is a much more productive way to deal with difficulties that are, for the time being, out of your control.