Perspective - the 2nd Key To Positivity

My Morning Breakfast

I started a series last week discussing how to remain positive during the smaller difficulties we face in life.  A few weeks ago I shared my steps on remaining positive when we are faced with life altering challenges in our lives but in this series I wanted to show that the same principles could be applied for the smaller difficulties we may face. 

To help illustrate this theory I have been discussing how I have kept a positive attitude while going through the “self imposed” prison of recovering from my bone marrow transplant.  Our first step, as discussed, in last weeks post was that you must make peace with the difficulties in your life.  By this I don’t mean you must achieve overall peace in your life, you just need to accept your situation before you can move forward.

Once we have made peace with our situation we can move onto the second step, gaining Perspective.  This step can take a little self reflection and soul searching but it is a very worthwhile exercise to undertake.  By adding perspective to our situation we can reduce the magnitude of the situation.  We often have a tendency to blow our negative situations way out of proportion, and feel that they are much worse than they really are.  Gaining perspective in our situation counteracts this and brings us back to a more realistic view of our current situation. 

For me my perspective came doing some reflection on the past year while laying in bed one night getting ready to fall asleep.  I realized that I was lucky to be lying there still alive.  In the past year I have basically been brought right to my deathbed in my treatments twice and I got through them.  A lot of people aren’t as fortunate as I have been in surviving  both these deadly treatments.  And to top it off, I achieved the ultimate goal of full remission. 

By looking at this this way, my perspective on my current situation changed drastically.  I was no longer living in a prison, but walking through a dark cave.  Instead of the cave being all dark, there was a tiny light in the distance which I realized is my exit.  My ability to change perspectives and appreciate the situation I am currently in made me realize that I am on the road out of the cave; with each passing day I take another step closer to the light and exit. 

Taking the time to alter our perspective during a difficult time can be a tough process of self examination and reflection, but trust me it is well worth it.  To achieve a change in perspective you don’t always have to go deep within yourself, you can find your inspiration in others as well to help alter your perspective. 

I maintain the attitude that no matter how bad a situation is, there is always someone going through something tougher.  So if you are having a hard time altering your perspective through self reflection, try and draw strength from others and how they are dealing with their difficult situations. 

Once we have altered the perspective we have towards our difficult situation we can move on to the third step in maintaining our positive outlook, and the topic of the next post in this series, Passion in our lives.

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