Svithe: Perspective

Last weekend when my brother was driving from Chandler, AZ to Snowflake, AZ for the Pioneer Day Celebrations, my niece took note of the thermometer reading as they wound their way up the mountains. When they left the valley it was roughly 119* (the low that day was 95!). As they hit Payson it was around 80*, to which my niece exclaimed, "80 degrees! That's winter weather!" They continued up the mountain only to find rain and lower temperatures. Snowflake was in the 60's and rainy; upon noticing this she said, " 68 degrees! That's really winter weather!!"

Funny how our life experiences can influence our perspective on normalcy and reality. Or is it the other way around? Is it that our perspective of our life experiences creates our reality from which we conclude what is normal?

I used to be into photography so this little snippet caught my eye.

A wide angle lens, for example, shows more of the scene than would a "normal" lens from the same perspective. A telephoto shows just a small part of the same scene, but from a far closer viewpoint. A fisheye lens can be so dramatic, that it will show the feet of the photographer taking the picture. All these lenses show "reality" in their own specific way. None of them is particularly more "true" than another, even though we consider lenses that show life differently than our own eyes show it to be "distorted."

In the same way, we form our perspectives on life filtered and changed by our lenses of experience, prejudice, viewpoint, and our personal outlook on life. Change the lens, you change the perspective. Change the perspective, you change the approach. The reality of the situation has not changed. Only our view of it changes.

Are you looking at a particular challenge in your life? Are you confronted by a fear so debilitating that you cannot adequately address it? Are you worried about a particular problem, haunted by a failure in the past? Are you concerned about your future? Change your perspective, and change your life. It sounds like a platitude, I know. It sounds even too Pollyanna-ish to be responsible. It would be ludicrous, except for one very important thing -- it works. (taken from this article)

We got our hospital bill for the surgery. Out of pocket we'll end up paying about $2500 which feels like a lot to us right now (especially since we just bought a house and depleted the vast majority of our savings). But, after looking at what we could have been paying had we not had insurance (around $28000-29000 with Urgent care, Ambulance, Hospital, and Surgery), I'm very grateful it's only $2500.