All grass is yellow

Have you ever noticed how you typically have to experience something first hand to really understand what it's like? How you have to go through something yourself before you fully grasp what others who have been through the same thing might feel? How you can't relate to others who have seen the Grand Canyon until you've seen it too? I call that feeling or reality perspective.

I've come to believe that true perspective only comes with contrast. You never really know what something is until you can contrast it with something that it is not. Take the Grand Canyon. Everyone knows that the Grand Canyon is big. But I've seen some pretty big trucks, and some pretty big buildings. Heck, for that matter, I've seen some pretty big mountains and rivers and lakes. If you've been to the Grand Canyon you know...everything else seems small. You walk up to the edge of it expecting something big and you're surprised because big isn't descriptive enough. When you, a person maybe somewhere between 5' and 7' see the Grand Canyon you feel like you're as small as an insect. Perspective comes with contrast.

Don't believe me? Take photography then, or rather think of focus. Put your finger in front of your face about 8 inches out. Now if your finger is bigger than your eye, you might have eye cancer! JK JK. Keep your finger there and focus on your computer or phone or tablet or whatever else you might be reading this on. Then focus back on your finger. Then back to the screen. You see a whole different set of things when you switch your focus. One moment you're thinking, "Man is there something wrong with me since I'm seeing two fingers when I know I only have one up?!?" and the next moment you're thinking, "Geesh I should trim my finger nails more often." Perspective is a lot like focus. Whatever you're focused on will automatically exclude everything else. You can't focus on two things at once. Now, if you get really good at it, you can focus on something but still be paying attention to a lot of other things outside of the center of your focus-kind of like a narrow aperture in photography. Your depth of field can increase with skill.

I think that life works the same way. You gain perspective when you contrast things. When you've experienced something, say depression for example, you gain a new sense of perspective on what it means to be affected by your feelings and circumstances. Or say you loose something very valuable to you, you gain some perspective on what it's like to life without certain privileges or conveniences. You gain a fuller perspective when you have something to contrast with. You may not even be able to tell that that favorite white t shirt of yours is actually kind of ivory until you can hold it up against a brand new white t shirt. You probably don't think your vision is that bad until you can contrast it with the vision you have when the optometrist flips that lens down giving you two examples of how you might be able to see. Perspective comes with contrast.


If you've know me for very long, you know that I often say now, "I used to think..." or "I used to be..." My life has not been what I thought it would be. I'm sure most people can say something like that for themselves. But, I'm reminded often by other people who've known me for a long time that I'm not doing, thinking, or being what they'd thought I'd be doing, thinking, or being.

My life has had a fair amount of contrast over the last several years. In some ways, I feel like God is trying to continually increase my perspective in an effort to make me into a content, humble, and trusting follower of Him. It's tough stuff for sure.

I find myself comparing, comparing, and comparing. It's so unhealthy to live like that. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt that said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." That's so stinkin true it's frustrating. When you compare yourself to others, your ability to experience contentment vanishes. As your contentment disappears, your life is robbed of joy. Your overall view of your life, job, family, marriage, bank account, entertainment center, vehicle, gun safe, or tackle box get muddled.


That's the tricky thing about perspective though. You can't compare your life to others' lives and gain perspective. For some reason, we seem incapable of understanding what it's really like to be richer, fancier, more popular, healthier, or happier until we've actually experienced some of those things for ourselves. That's when we gain true perspective-when our experiences are contrasting each other. We see better, fuller, and more accurately when we have a good perspective.




 Sometimes I just find myself in my yard looking down at my grass thinking, "Why is this grass so yellow?" Then I look up to my neighbors yard and think "Why is his grass so green? I wish I could have a lawn like his!"

Then one day, you go over to your neighbors yard...you notice that his yard seems kind of yellow!? Wait, is that my yard? Whoa man! My grass is looking good from over here!

That's the thing with grass and life-it's always seems like everybody else has it right, but in reality...all grass is yellow...it just depends on your perspective.