So recently in my life, I realized three major things:
People perceive things differently
I impact other people’s attitudes
I can change things
I was talking to one of my friends about our current school year, and how these years of high school have literally flown by! We talked about how our perspective has changed over the years. After talking about perspective, I started to examine my own life. Once I started thinking about it, that is when the first point hit me like a brick! I have been perceiving things differently than how other people have been perceiving things. For example, I have been sitting in the same seat in history for over a year now. I sat one seat away from the front and faced inwards towards my friends, cutting the rest of the classroom off. Well, if any of you know me, you know that I talk and laugh a lot. Because of that, I got moved in my History class to a different seat, all the way across the classroom against the wall. All of a sudden, my perspective changed. I saw the other people in my class that I had been missing for years. My focus had been the same small section of the class, and I was missing out on the rest of the students! As soon as I started looking up and seeing the others, I decided that I wanted to stay in the seat I was in. I loved seeing people talking, laughing, and having fun. As I sat there, my heart began to sink as I thought about how I had missed out on all of these awesome people. From what I see now, I have a whole new perspective!
The second thing I learned is that I can have an impact on the people around me. I have always known this, but never truly understood the power behind it. I was thinking about how when people are around a person who is extremely joyful and thankful, they tend to in turn be way more grateful and thankful for everything. But have you ever noticed that when a person is grumpy or mad, that they can bring the whole room down? I have really noticed this lately, and one of the major ways that I realized you can impact someone is with your attitude. I asked myself, “Ha
s my attitude lately affected people in a good way, or in a bad way?” I now realize that if really I want to live different, then I need to impact people around me in a positive way!
The last thing that I realized is that I still have time to change things, but not a lot of time. Since I am graduating this year, I only have a few more months to work on the relationships around me. I have been praying to God almost everyday on my way to school, “God help me see the people that you see.” I have opened my eyes and changed my perspective this school year, and I have really tried to see people differently than in the past. I have come to the realization that many people are hurting and need the love of God. I now realize that I have been holding back on the love of God that is in me. Do you relate? Do you have things you see from a skewed perspective? My advice for you is to pray the prayer I said earlier, take a step back, and then put yourself in other people's shoes. You will be extremely surprised at what their perspectives can be! Now you can go and LIVE DIFFERENT!
-Tessa Houde
