Day 191
I talk a lot about perspective, but here's an odd thinking technique I often use. Anyone else do this?
I'll be driving to work, and I'll take a moment (safely) now and then to just look at the road coming back the other way. Not just look at it, but see it in reverse, see what it looks like as cars come down that side, just as I do at the end of my day.
Maybe I'll notice the trees I never take the time to look at from this angle, as I usually rush past them on my way home later, or maybe I'll just note the buildings or houses along the way--on the other side of the road--and appreciate them (briefly, safely) from a different angle. I'll even do this when looking at an on-ramp, imagining my own car rolling up off the parkway and onto this road some eight hours later, teaching myself how other cars have to slow down to let me merge onto their road.
Backwards thinking is usually a negative phrase to connote someone who's just got everything wrong, but for me, I've found it can also help me really see the whole road, and not just my view of it. It helps me appreciate that while I'm driving along life's roads, others are always doing things completely different from me. Some are driving in the lane to my left or the lane to my right, faster or slower than I like to go, but many others are going in the complete opposite direction. Instead of driving toward the sunrise, they might be driving in the direction of the eventual sunset.
Thinking backwards helps us appreciate one of the greatest truths we can hope to learn in this life: our way is not the only way. Whether it's our favorite church or our favorite restaurant, just because we like things a certain way doesn't mean others have to as well. We are, all of us, entitled to our own beliefs and feelings. Just as importantly, our neighbors are too.
So the next time you're driving along one of life's roads, pause to think about this, and take note of all the people who are happily traveling toward all the directions you are not.
No comments:
Post a Comment