Nazariya..

Perspective. the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship.

During one of our endless chat sessions at the expense of our "billed" time, Ria showed me a sketch that she had drawn recently. The picture, among other things, had a sun in the distant horizon. when i asked whether it was a sunrise or a sunset, she said it's a sunset. i argued that it could as well be a sunrise and that would give a completely different meaning to the picture. Later, I was thinking how just by looking at a picture in a different way, (mind you i'm not making any changes in the picture per se. i am just thinking in a different way than earlier while looking at the picture) we give it a whole new meaning. We all come across text meant to inspire us in the form of forwarded mails, SMSes, greeting cards, wallpapers, t-shirt graffiti and every other conceivable medium of conveying a message trying to tell us to be positive. There is so much of it all around us that one at times wonders if it's just a clever arrangements of words structured to hit a particular spot or there is actually some truth to it.

The answer lies in the sweet spot somewhere in the middle. There is so much of it around us because it is very easy to conjure up words like hope, attitude, ants, mountains etc. and come up with something that sounds a little uplifting. Most of these permutations and combinations are, to a large extent, true as well. It might sound unsettling, especially to engineers like me and other similar logic-driven, solution-oriented creatures that one could simply solve problems by changing one's perspective. But it's true nevertheless. This is because the way we look at a problem, other than the ones we come across in textbooks, decides how we approach it. I am talking about the problems that we come across in our daily lives. The problems in dealing with circumstances, people, crises, opportunities v/s moralities, present v/s past v/s future and other similar things. How you look at something decides, on a subconscious level, how you are going to face it. That, in turn, decides your approach which to a large extent decide the strength of your efforts and ultimately gives you a result. 

It might sound easier than people find it to be but the idea is not to assess the ease, but the very truthfulness of the claim. Having a different perspective may not make your problems disappear, but it definitely lets you prepare better. You can study before an important exam hoping to pass it or you can study telling yourself that you're NOT going to fail, come what may. In the first approach, you would be making the minimum necessary effort which, according to your judgement, should be enough to help you clear the exam whereas, in the second one, you would leave no stone unturned to ensure that you do not leave any possibility of failure. I don't think I need to explain which approach has a higher probability of success.

It is this difference in attitudes that differentiates the achievers from the masses, and the legends from the achievers. It is this attitude that decides, whether it's a sunset - when things are over and it's time to go home, or it's sunrise - full of possibilities and opportunities. They are exact opposites of each other and yet, look the same, as if on purpose.  I think it's a master stroke of the Creator, done as an effort for us to look at it and decide how we're going to see it. He gave us the choice, and he told us the word - Perspective, Drushtikon, Nazariya.