Changes in Perspective

If you could go back in time, what would you do different?

A former high-school class-mate recently asked me if I could go back in time and choose differently, would I do it?

I thought about it and replied that with my knowledge and experience back then I could not have made a different choice. Actually, compared to how I might define “educated” today, I could not have made any educated choice at all back then!

The key point is that my perspective has changed a lot over the years. Still, there is more to it — my current experience and knowledge is the result of what I have done, and my perspective now has grown as a consequence of my decisions back then. So my choices do not seem to have been that bad after all!

Imagine you stand in a forest and pick the direction to go. If you go one way, you’ll get to the sea. Another way, you’ll get to a mountain. Yet another way, you get into a wide field. If you went to the field and saw the mountain in the distance, you could have climbed it. You would not only see the sea, but possibly also the wide field and many other things. Most importantly, you would change your perception of the forest you started at.

The only way not to grow and learn something new is to stay where we are now. Not leaving the forest, as the path may seem long. Once we get out our limited perspective inside the forest becomes meaningless — what matters now is our new, enlarged view of the world.

We can move on again. We can continue to take the next leap and search for things beyond our current perception.

I am not saying that it is mandatory to change. One choice need not be superior to the other. I am saying that we need to think carefully how our current perception and view point is limited, and that there might be far more to know and learn than we are currently aware of.