Perspective Part 2: Change in the Moment

It's all in the perspective of the moment.

What's your perception of that statement? There must be periods of time that are good and periods of time that are bad?

But what's your perception of time? Mine says, when there is an instance of bad in my life, I can choose to focus on it and draw it out as long as humanly possible, or I can choose to accept it and let it go as quickly as I'm humanly capable. Same rules apply to the good instances ... I can draw them out for all they are worth, or take them for granted and lose them in a search for something better.

Things don't always look like what we were expecting, right? Well, I started carrying that reminder with me daily more than three years ago. It has not failed me once. When asked at the right moments, a chance to change my perspective is a chance to change my world. For better or worse is, of course, completely up to me. It is my perspective. It is my choice.

Another way to describe it is to visualize life as a colorful upward path of rotating cycles connected by ladders. You will repeat the same cycle for eternity until you are able to change your perception of what occurs within the cycle. Change your perception and you succeed in seeing the full experience and grasping the rung of the ladder which takes you off that cycle. You achieve lasting change.

Then why, after experiencing success, do I often get hit with another series of ruts that feel like tenfold the previous negatives, you ask? Because you still have expectations. Because that's life. You get off one cycle, climb a rung on the ladder, and get on another cycle.

Once I trust and maintain my awareness and understanding of the change I create within myself, I can experience a change in my perception. Then I experience a new cycle. Once I perceive the new cycle, I recognize the tenfold negatives aren't old problems. They're new, problems. Then the tenfold negatives don't seem like tenfold negatives. They seem like a reward that I've made it to the next level of my life's challenges.

I earn my ascension, I accept the next cycle of experience, and the old problems don't bother me anymore, unless I lose my perception and let them. It is possible to fall off of one cycle and land back in an older one. Sorry.

So, I achieve another perspective, thus, I achieve the next higher rung on my ladder of evolution. Things that affected me negatively before no longer matter. The weight comes off my mind and my shoulders, and I am able to accept and move on to the next challenge. We've all heard of or had the experience of losing the job and perceiving it to be the end of the world, only to find it was the best thing that ever happened ... viola, problems are not problems anymore! It is all in the moment's perspective.

Building these awarenesses, I can now perceive that my perceptions are becoming more expansive, flexible, and fluid. They are easy going, rather than rigid and controlling. I seldom find myself expecting a means to an end or an unrealistic reward. I am, in fact, much easier to please, and much more forgiving to myself and others.

I perceive that I am still alive and, thus, still have much to experience and discover. I am now able to let go of the old bothersome cycles much quicker, and move on to the new and more challenging cycles - things I still need to perceive and change within me - more easily.

Perceiving this means that I spend a fraction of the time frustrated and up against a brick wall than I used to. My life is much easier, nearly idyllic. My time is much better spent. I see more progress each week, each day, each moment, than I used to see all year. That is true personal growth. That is true self improvement.

I can achieve and perceive a lasting change in myself by myself.

I cannot achieve or perceive a lasting change in others by myself. They have to achieve it themselves for me to perceive it. I can imagine it. I can hope for it. I can put all my energies into it. But it will not be real. It will not be lasting. Not until they make the change lasting and perceive the change themselves.

I cannot achieve or perceive a lasting change in the world by myself. I can imagine it. I can hope for it. I can put all my energies into it. But it will not be real. It will not be lasting. Only when humankind achieves a majority change of perspective, individually, will we affect the conscious collective. And only then will we perceive the world to have made a lasting change.

But that seems so unobtainable.

Only because too many believe it is unobtainable. Only because too many believe someone else should be responsible to change the world for the better. Only because too many believe they have tried and failed and are unwilling to try any more. Only because too many believe it takes too much effort for too long and for too little return.

It will never change until we change our perception of what to expect, when to expect it, how to expect it, and where to expect it. We must change first, lastingly, before we will ever earn a changed world.

Is that discouraging to you? Take a moment, then, and change your perspective. In truth, at the same time you are responsible for the world, you are only responsible for yourself. For you are the world. You can only change you. So, you can change the world. Simply by changing you.

This is what humans named paradox. The collective conscious believes that if you can't see it first, it is too hard to believe in the possibility. So, humanity as a whole stays on its current cycle.

So, what do you do next?

You ask questions.

When it comes to failed attempts at personal growth or self improvement, why do you fail?

For one thing you are not failing. You are perceiving failure. What you are actually doing is experiencing. If you are trying to lose weight, lose ten pounds, then gain twelve back, you have succeeded in losing weight. You have also succeeded in gaining weight. Most people only see one perception: you gained more weight back. Why did you gain it back? Because you stopped putting in the effort. You did not make a lasting change. You only made a temporary change. And you failed to perceive your own success because it didn't look the way you expected. You sold yourself short. Change takes times, patience, self discipline, responsibility, and lasting commitment in every moment. Nothing less.

If you happen to be repeating a particularly frustrating cycle it is most likely for one of two reason.

1. You simply haven't seen or accepted all your perspectives yet.
2. Or you have seen them and you are choosing to try to help someone else see them, too, before you move up the ladder.

Usually, but not always, it is the former not the latter. (If you are in the latter category, refer back to the paragraph that begins with, "I can achieve...").

For the former's, the more you look outside of yourself and your perspectives for an answer, the more frustrating the cycle gets. Why the frustration? Because that's when the answer is right in front of you. You just don't want to see it for what it is. Those are the answers you are too stubborn to admit, the perspectives you are too stubborn to see. That's when there is a big discovery coming, an epiphany, a huge weight off the shoulders. Those are the perspectives that look way different than you could ever have expected. Amazingly, they are usually exceedingly simple, as well. Either you want to lose weight or you don't.

Have you ever had an astrology reading or massage? How did they make you feel? Intrigued and amazed, revived and aware of yourself? When's the last time you got one?

Why do we give ourselves a taste of a less than tangible perception, then believe it to be a hoax when it doesn't stay with us for the rest of the day, let alone the rest of our lives?

What makes you think you deserve those good, wondrous feelings longer than a day, let alone the rest of your life, when you don't put any continued effort into trusting yourself, the change, or the astrologist, that it worked?

When you put no effort into your desires or responsibilities, you lack self discipline. It's time to face the fact that you must earn those good feelings every moment of every day. Nobody gets to put in a little bitty effort and coast for the next twenty years. We can choose to perceive that there are people doing it that way, but that perception gets us nowhere, does it?

Copyright © 2009 Rebecca Halstead
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