Some Different Points-of-View

It's all about your particular point-of-view.

I think I have written before what my favorite professor had taught me many years ago. Every way of seeing is a way of not seeing. How true this really is.

This statement can be applied to so many facets of life it could fill dozens of texts, each thousands of pages in length. And still, we probably would find other ways to look at things.

Like politics.

Or religion.

Or the environment.

Or family concerns.

Or self-fulfillment.

I'm going to take a quick -- and I do mean quick -- stab at that last one for a minute. My father had written that all of us struggle. This is true. Life isn't just complicated. Life is downright hard. To make matters worse, there are reminders out there at every corner that shows us how someone may have a better life. Someone else's opportunities and decisions led them to the success that we wanted for ourselves. It's like a 24 hour I told you so. And it hurts.

But it doesn't have to.

For every person out there who has their continuous uphill battle, there is someone else with a steeper hill to climb. This is important. If we look beyond the fence of our lives, we'll see that everyone has their own baggage. The rich guy whose money you envy? Maybe he's so busy working he has no life -- no way to enjoy his wealth. The "family man" who has the house, the minivan and the 2.2 kids? He's knee-deep in debt and feels trapped by his own surroundings. The single man who goes home with different girls every weekend? He is alone alot. And I do mean alone. The man who seems to have it all? He wants what you have.

Trust me.

It's all point-of-view.

My father also wrote that whether you say you can or whether you say you can't, you are right (by the way, my father's brilliance can be found in any of his books -- Courage is a Three-Letter Word, The Greatest Risk of All, Read With Me, The Confidence Course and Meant To Be -- read them all). Think about that.

You want to feel good about yourself? Then tell yourself you can feel good about yourself.

But be honest with yourself. Money, possessions and fame are not the vehicles to feeling good about yourself. Don't believe me? Go look up how many rich and famous people kill themselves. Those things may make you comfortable. But they won't make you feel better about yourself.

Watching your child learn, especially when you have taught her or him, is the way. Loving someone -- for real -- is the way. Living for your memories, your experiences, that is the way. Making this hard life a little better for someone else -- now that is the way.

It has taken me a long and painful road to get to this realization. I am lucky to have realized it so young. But it was hard. It took years of abuse, of living with depression, of nearly killing myself, of finding personal redemption and a new commitment to my self to get there.

My life is really no different than it was two-and-a-half years ago when I nearly threw it all away. It's my perspective -- my point-of-view -- that has changed.

And I very much like what I see.