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PerspectiveHenry David Thoreau It is how we perceive things in the context of the whole and how we judge the importance of one thing in relation to others.
Everything that happens in your life is in accordance with how you perceive it. What is catastrophic to one person is a challenge and opportunity for growth to another. When a positive, healthy self-concept exists, putting things in perspective becomes an exercise in critical thinking and reasoning rather than an emotionally centered event. Even though we cannot help but react emotionally to some difficult situations, if we cannot control or change them, we can decide how we allow them affect us. Attitude, which is an aspect of perspective, is a way of thinking or looking at things. We have the ability to choose how we think or our attitudes. William James the famed psychologist said: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a person can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind". How we experience or interpret events in our lives depends on our attitude. As we all probably know by now, attitudes can be positive or negative. If we choose to view our experiences - good, bad or indifferent from a positive attitude we will probably see them as opportunities for personal growth and development. If, however, we let ourselves get caught up in negativity when things don’t go our way, we will miss out on the opportunities for growth and set ourselves up for similar situations until we understand how to deal with them. Certainly not everything in life goes smoothly and without incident. Sometimes the challenges we face can drive us to the brink and make us question why is this happening and how could it have been avoided? During those times we would probably prefer to not have to deal with the obstacles that are thrown in our path. It is in these moments that we really have to think and choose how we are going to approach the situation at hand. When we operate from the perspective or attitude that we are here to learn, develop and work to reach our potential, we can’t help but have a positive, progressive outlook. Ultimately life is a subjective experience and it is up to each of us to decide how we choose to view and experience it.
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