Perspective: Its About Point of View

I have often had this thought and after rereading this article, I loved how my thoughts were described by someone else. The following quotes come from portions of this talk given at a General Conference session for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"Perspective is the way we see things when we look at them from a certain distance..." Depending on the distance, our perspective can change. "It is like being in a forest and having a tree in front of us. Unless we step back a little, we will not be able to appreciate what a forest really is."

When small children learn to work on puzzles, they often become frustrated when the pieces don't quickly and easily fit together. My own daughter has said that the puzzle is broken or missing pieces when she can't find ones that fit together.

Like the story about the forest, looking at only a few pieces in the puzzle makes it hard to see the big picture. But sometimes in order to put the pieces together, you need to focus on the the small pieces to see how they fit; to match up the edges and align the designs.

Even when multiple pieces are starting to come together, we can make guesses as to what the picture might contain and even have a pretty good idea of what the final image will be.

But until the entire puzzle is put together and finished, we cannot understand how or what effect the picture many have on us or appreciate the image or its complexity.

I have started to compare life to a giant puzzle. There are parts we understand and parts we don't. As we slowly connect these pieces together, we can see a theme or guess at what the general idea is about. However, it won't be until we connect all the pieces, in their correct places, that we will gain an understanding of the picture or plan before us.

We never know how much of our puzzle is complete especially when compared to someone else's puzzle or their standards. Sometimes we put the pieces together at different starting points and find it hard to make connects between what they see and think when compared to what we see and think. We won't be able to understand what others see or believe until we can see something from their perspective or use their process of thinking to see where they started and what path they used in order to reach their conclusions.