A wrong perspective can block more of your initiatives than any external
obstacle. If your vision is short-sighted, you will not perceive
anything beyond the immediate. If your vision is blurred, you will get
lost in speculative discussions. If you look too far away into the
future, you will lose touch with your environment.
The wrong perspective
At the turn of
the 10th century, thousands of peasants in Europe believed that the
world was coming to an end. Their incentive to work diminished sharply
and, as a result, agricultural output decreased. High food prices led to
the fulfilment of their prophecy, since many families starved during
the winter that inaugurated the second millennium of our era. A wrong
perspective annihilated part of the population,
Drug addicts and
compulsive gamblers embody an extreme type of short-term mentality.
Their world is restricted to what will happen in the next hours or
minutes. Their minds do not register the physical and financial
consequences of their actions. Their numbed sensitivity ignores danger
signals. Their grasp of reality has shrunk to the minimum. Warnings
cannot reach their ears.
Are the above examples valid? Do you
consider self-evident that man needs a proper perspective of life? If
everybody agrees with this conclusion, is the whole discussion
pointless? Frankly, I don't think so.
The solution
If you really believe that
the issue is settled, you might be making a fundamental mistake. The
truth is that, every year, millions of individuals destroy their lives
by embarking themselves on counter-productive ventures.
People
quit hard-earned positions and abandon established professions in
pursuit of unworkable projects. Sometimes, individuals risk their health
or physical survival by getting involved in losing propositions.
Occasionally, such delusions affect a large segment of the population.
These
tragedies happen so often that we have grown desensitized to them. This
phenomenon is so apparent that we have lost the capacity to see it.
Lack of perspective wrecks innumerable human lives. The seriousness of
the problem is deeper than we are willing to admit; its size, bigger
than statistics can register.
Leading a prosperous and happy life
requires that we discard ideas that don't work. Trying to accomplish
the unworkable serves to fuel vanity, not well-being. Nobody will be
helped if you attempt to accelerate change beyond what the environment
can take.
For more information about rational living and personal development, I
refer you to my book The
10 Principles of Rational
Living
Text:
http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com
Image by MJorge under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license
terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us