What is perspective? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition for perspective is: “a particular way of considering something or to think about a situation or problem in a wise and reasonable way.” In the American-English: “a particular way of viewing things that depends on one’s experience and personality.” But, as in most cases, some dictionary definitions are not enough.
Perspective is a mental view of everything around us. How we see things around us, is affected by our own experiences, knowledge, culture and society background. The way we are brought up shapes us, and thus, our perspective on things, but never stays the same.
I can vouch for the last one, as something happened to me fairly recently. While looking at different maps of the world, my perception on the world was shattered, as I found out that the most used version of the Earth’s map, is not the same with the closest depiction and scale of the actual map of our planet. Watching the actual map of the Earth was a little bit of uncomfortable at first, but that was just my perspective shifting.
Black outline is the standard version of the map, compared with the actual resized map of the world. ©Vivid Maps
Sometimes things appear big, but in the larger scheme of things, they are actually quite small. On the contrary, it may happen that some things may appear small, but, once you tie it with the big picture, those small things can have large impacts. This method of thinking can be applied everywhere. The most common example I can think of is failure. Sure, everyone can fail at a specific time in their life, it can happen to everyone, you and me. That moment feels very heavy, maybe it feels like all hope is lost. But, if you focus on the big picture, about how long life actually is and how trials and tribulations are a part of life and can’t be avoided, this “enormous” failure, will seem like nothing but a small hiccup along the way.
Perspective and time, everything a human being needs.
– Hansi Brahimasi
Volunteers in FRSP 