I will often tell my patients that perspective is not just important, it is the only thing that matters. I truly believe this for two very simple reasons.

Perspective, unlike most of the universe (bother the inner and the outer), is something you can control. You choose your perspective, that is how you look at things, and you can always choose to look at something differently.

Don’t like the way your life is going? Think about how you are looking at the circumstances of your life. There are always different angles from which to view whatever is going on.

Secondly it is from your perspective that all your future actions originate. What you do in life depends entirely on how you are looking at it. Your perspective is literally the fertile soil from which your actions grow.

Let me give you two examples, the first of which is a bit of a cliche.

It is said that when Thomas Edison was searching for a better material to use as a filament in his lightbulb design he tried over 10,000 different substances. After each was tried, and failed, he would make a note in his log book and move on to the next. When asked by a reporter why he did not give up when he failed at finding the material he is said to have replied, “I haven’t failed at anything. I successfully discovered another substance that cannot be used to make a lightbulb.”

In another life I was a salesman in technology. This was in the long ago before time. So long ago in fact I was selling equipment to the companies which were building the internet. This work required me to go to a lot of meetings and trainings about all sorts of things I really didn’t care much about, but I had to go. It was part of my job. None of my fellow salespeople wanted ti go to these meetings either and I noticed that after each of these meetings we would all complain about what a waste of our time the meeting was. This habit always left me feeling like a bit of a failure, like I had wasted precious moments of my life I would never get back.

I decided one day to stop thinking about these meetings that way and to search for a new way of looking at them. I decided that if I could learn one thing from a meeting or a training the event would not be a waste of my time. It worked like a charm. I found myself more alert in the meetings and more attentive to what they were talking about. My attention only went up when the talk was boring or the product was useless because sometimes I would really have to look deep to learn something from a meeting.

A coworker one day, after a particularly boring presentation, made a comment about how much I must love technology. I told him I was actually looking for the one thing. Of course I had to explain and he didn’t agree but you know what ended up happening? I ended up liking my job a whole lot more and selling more equipment, and thereby making a lot more money that this other person did.

Perspective is the only thing that truly matters.

For example a lot of us bloggers talk about wanting to get paid for our writing. I have written this down as an intention for this year multiple times already, as I’m sure most of you have too.

But you want to know something funny?

I am standing in my office right now typing this post out. I have the free time to do so because a patient did not show for their appointment. I am literally being paid to write this post. I have a nice benefits package too.

Perspective is the only thing that matters and if yours is not serving you, building you up in some way my suggestion to you is that you find another perspective. They are out there, these different perspectives, I promise you that. Sometimes you do have to look around a bit but if you fix your mind in something you will always find it. Humans always find what they are looking for.

I don’t know what your day is looking like right now, maybe you are trying to figure out how to get paid for your writing so hard you have completely overlooked the fact that you already are.

Me, I do a lot of things for income. My latest project? I get paid to write.