Editor's note: The following monthly perspective was written by National Horseman's publisher, Allison Lambert, appearing in the June Extra 2016 issue.
Perspective
By Allison Lambert
Perspective is a powerful thing. It can allow two people to look at the same object or situation and see it in completely different ways. From a math problem to a painting, or even an argument, our ability to see things in their entirety is limited by our perspective. As Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
Certain people are born with the innate ability to think differently and see things from an unconventional point of view. Some of the most influential people in history understood the importance of perspective. Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Sir Isaac Newton and Marie Curie all changed the world because they refused to accept things as the way others saw them. It was their capacity to see things differently that gave them the power to change the world.
The greatest discoveries in science were the result of a little perspective change. For a long time, scholars thought Earth was the center of the solar system, based on the rate at which celestial bodies moved around it. The problem was that they were looking at the motion of planets from the perspective of Earth. It wasn’t until Renaissance mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus considered their motion from the standpoint of the sun that things began to make more sense. A similar change in perspective allowed Aristotle to argue that Earth was spherical well before people even considered it a possibility. Instead of looking at Earth’s shape from his perspective on land, Aristotle looked at the circular shadow the planet cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and his perspective was altered forever.
We all have problems in our lives that seem impossible to solve—from overcoming a relationship obstacle to getting along with a new horse—but the answer could be as simple as changing our perspective. Sometimes we just need to look at our problems a different way to see the solution. Because when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, and even the word “I’mpossible” starts to look a little different.