Changing Perspectives

A few years ago I realized that my life is about half over (well, if I live to be 106 anyway, as my husband points out.)

A funny thing happens when you crest a hill and start down the other side. Instead of looking the direction you’ve always looked, your entire life, you find yourself like a skier suddenly heading down the mountain, looking in a new direction, going faster than you have ever gone---or expected to go---carving out surprising new terrain and trying to maintain some semblance of control-- to avoid the scary parts, hold onto your stabilizing poles, and keep from landing on your fanny---or worse!

And in order to do that you can’t be looking in the direction you were up until then. You have to take in the new scenery. Look at the view from a fresh perspective.

If you want to keep going, that is. If you don’t, you can stubbornly look in the same direction, maintain the same perspective as before, but one way or another your remaining journey will probably be short. And you'll miss a lot of good stuff.

Let's hear it for new perspectives! I'm glad that just when I think I can't be surprised anymore, life/God/nature throws something amazing in my face that shakes me out of complacency. That happened when I saw a glacier lake for the first time...its unique beauty made me cry. I think the emotion came from a recognition that life always holds the potential to surprise us in wonderful ways. That's where hope comes from, I guess.

We climb mountains in one way or another throughout our lives. Maybe what we see during our journeys depends on how willing we are to change our perspectives along the way.

Go climb a mountain.