Perspective
“We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.”
― Joel Osteen
The other day I was going home from work, driving my car and listening to the radio. I was in a bad mood because I made a great deal of effort at work and credit for it was given indirectly to my colleague. I was listening to the broadcasting, both news and music and was drowning disappointment in self-pity. Then a song started and though I wasn’t listening to it carefully, I suddenly heard two words prominently among other words. True seeker. TRUE SEEKER.
The words were screaming in my mind and I was wondering what I was to understand. When I came home, I tried to find lyrics of the song on the Internet but instead I found various definitions of who the true seeker is. I think that one of the definitions might be that the true seeker is someone who seeks truth. Truth about what is above us as well as what is inside us. It’s somehow intermingled, isn’t it?
People sometimes say that they would want to be a fly on a wall to watch their children or partners or to be present at an event they can’t participate in. I wonder what it would be like to be the fly on the wall and watch oneself… who would we see?
A few days ago my husband told me that I had behaved in a negative way for some time and that he would appreciate if I changed that. I was staring at him. I felt to be an optimist so what he was talking about? Then we were discussing it and he let me see my behavior from his perspective. Well, I had to admit that from his point of view he was right. His perspective helped me and I wanted to change what he was complaining about. To make it clear, I don’t think we should change our behavior according to how people see us, we would do nothing else but change permanently and would become a weird personality. Yet we should be able to look into that mirror of perspective and judge the reflection. Isn’t there hidden a piece of truth? Don’t I avoid it?
Or another example. Once I read a book where an exercise was described which was supposed to let me understand my emotions from a different perspective. I decided to try that with my family members so I sat down comfortably, closed my eyes and imagined an empty stage and then a chair in the middle of it. In my mind I came to the chair, sat down and waited. Then my mom entered the stage, approached me and stood by me. We didn’t speak at all and I was just perceiving what I felt. The feeling was changing, sort of developing. After some time – when the development stopped – I let her leave. Then my dad came and eventually my sis. I would have never imagined that the feelings could be so overwhelming, some of them unexpected and surprising. I understood a lot that day and it has influenced me for many years. But it also scared me somehow and I never had the courage to try that again.
This may be the proper time to get back to the true seeker. Be scared of truth? Be scared what the truth could reveal? Avoid the truth? I believe that if we truly seek we will find out that there is nothing to fear and that the truth will make us free.
