The Power of Perspectives

I come from a culture where we are taught, from a very young age, not to question things —  especially if a grownup tells it to you. There is even a saying in Afrikaans: Children should be seen and not heard. This attitude stays with us throughout our lives, and it cripples us as clear-thinking Human beings, because we don’t question. In other words: Wê get told something by someone calling themselves an expert and we don’t question it.

Experts are valuable, yes, but you don’t need them to vorm an opinion or to question and think for yourself. Whenever something is Published on Facebook, most people take it for the truth – especially the older generation. It was published somewhere, so it must be so, because it was SAID by a so-called expert – an expert of what? Masturbation, perhaps?

At the hand of the following quotation, I am going to show you just how powerful a different perspective can be. I Came across this quotation on Facebook: “Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself” I believe this quote is from a person. Called Ben Francia.

A Small Disclaimer

I feel it necessary to first point out to those with limited mental capabilities, or to those that do not understand how to read properly, the following: I am not disparaging this quote. It merely serves as an example to make a point – namely that we can think for ourselves if we choose to do so by questioning everything you read or hear.

Perspective 1

“Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself”

These are powerful words indeed. You, and you alone, are responsible for your own life. If there are things you don’t like, do something about it. If you want something, work and save for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch – even success needs to be worked for.

Perspective 2

“Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself”

What absolute excretion of a male animal of the bovine persuasion. Life cannot and should not be compared to a television or a HIFI system that can be operated remotely. Life simply is. And does working a remote not also, by definition, entails an expenditure of energy? First, you have to look around to find the remote, then you need to stick out your hand. After that, you need to pick it UP. Once picked UP, you need to find the correct button, point the device somewhere and then press the button. All of this entails energy expenditure and is therefore work – the same energy and work as in perspective one.

Some clever people refer to this process as “putting on a different pair of glasses”. I call it “the other side of the coin”. If you start to look critically at life, the universe and everything around you; if you question and learn to look at the other side of the coin; if you don’t take things at face value – especially the news media, you will broaden your horizons and you will break the chains the so-called experts and gate keepers of information enslaved modern society with.

You are not special

I have some really bad news for you: You aren’t special.

The world will not stop turning should you die. A few people, perhaps a few thousand, may miss you, but you don’t count in the bigger scheme of things.

Too often people are led to believe that they are special: That they are owed something by the world; that life owes them something.

It could be that someone told them that they are special; it could be self-deceit; it could be that they achieved something special. But they are not special; no-one is.

Let me illustrate with an example: That of Helen Keller.

Many people will now be too pissed off to continue reading and that’s fine. The truth sometimes hurts. Helen Keller was not special.

She was def and blind and, during the era in which she lived, disabled people were mostly seen as a drain on society. What she did was special. She overcame her disability and she did the people around her much good, but she wasn’t special. The day she passed on, the world did not stop turning. If she did not do and achieved special things, nobody would have remembered her today.

If you go through life with the idea that the world Oes you something, forget it now. You will be seen by some people as a leach or a beggar; someone who always stands with an open hand to just receive what comes to their side without giving a crap for the people around you. You will have very few friends, because you will never be happy — no matter where you go or what you do and achieve, because they will get nothing from the world and you will keep expecting that elusive “something”.

Why? Because you are not special and life does not owe you anything.