Keeping The Right Perspective?

[Anonymous]

I’ve reflected on this queston quite a bit.

My premise is that every situation can be viewed two different ways. One way assumes good motives and charity, the other way assumes selfishness or practicality, and often, self-serving-ness. At times it can be hard to know which one to adopt.

Here’s an example. There’s an author I love called Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals”, which is about getting big business and government to cave to the interests of disadvantaged groups. In his book, he discussed Ghandi.

As you know, Ghandi was the leader of a non-violent movement to claim Indian independence from Britain. He advocated “passive” methods of resistence which didn’t harm the British. These methods included strikes and civil disobedience, but did not advocate weapons of physical harm to the Britsh. This is widely believed to be an outgrowth of Ghandi’s love of all men, and desire to change their minds and his pure motives. He claimed that relationships, without surrender, were important to him. His approach was spiritual.

Saul Alinsky asked the question “Why did Ghandi advocate non-violent resistence?” Answer: “Because he couldn’t afford any guns”.

This may well have been true, Ghandi may have been simply using the biggest resource he had — the huge population of poor rank and file Indians who could make a huge impact without any investment in arms.

And, you could argue that in order to motivate the masses, Ghandi only APPEALED to their sense of spirituality to encourage them to support his programs, and encourage high levels of intrinsic motivation. He didn’t really mean it — the whole thing was a well-orchestrated duet of non-violence, and self-sacrifice due to lack of resources, and not spiritually motivated.

Here’s another one. When I was a missionary, an anti-mormon asked “Why does the Church advocate a year’s supply of food?”. His answer: “So they don’t use Church Welfare”.

On one hand, we”re told at Church that the year’s supply is for our own spirituality and character — self-reliance. On the other hand, you could argue that it’s simply there to wipe out the fast offering deficits and reduce Church expenditures when people face trials. When I attended PEC meetings, we were always under pressure to reduce our fast offering deficits, and although manuals said to “seek out the poor”, my feeling was that no one really wanted to do this. Trying to balance the books was critical.

So, out of all the interpretations one can make of a situation — good, or cynical — how do you go about making the right interpretation of the situation, so your behavior is based on truth?

[Anonymous]

May take is that our perspective has FAR less to do with “facts” and FAR more to do with our “nature” than most people realize or want to admit. I love the following statement:

Quote:

We don’t believe what we see; we see what we believe.

So, my suggestion simply is to try consciously to develop a charitable outlook. Intentionally practice thinking about how to interpret something positively rather than negatively – even to the extent of trying to find the pearl amid the overwhelming refuse. It’s ok to acknowledge the refuse, but trying to find the pearl is always a worthwhile endeavor, ime. I also include trying to understand what someone is saying in a charitable way FIRST, then considering negative possibilities only after establishing a more generous interpretation.

It’s amazing the difference internally such an approach can make.

[Anonymous]

I think it is all about determining and accepting whatever perspective works for you. It is like using statistics. The numbers are just the numbers, but how you use those statistics to tell a story to influence others is your perspective on things. Someone else can use other statistics to tell a completely different story. They can vary widely from one person to the other (listen to various talk show hosts 🙄 ), and they can be misinterpreted to mean something that does not reflect reality.

I think there is a reality…it is just the struggle of verbalizing it and explaining it to others that gets tricky.

Gandhi’s approach would likely not have worked with colonial america against the british, at some point guns were needed. I’m not sure Ghandi’s approach would work again in today’s time. But at the time it worked, and I think at the time, he was doing it sincerely because it was a way to get influence in an honorable way that won the hearts of people.

Sometimes I wish the Lamanites were diligent about keeping records and we had a Book of Mormon account told from their point of view…

Quote:

Book of Laman, son of Laman III

And we were totally blessed with dark tans by laying out all the time and it really helped us stay healthy and strong. In the end, we were blessed to defeat those unhealthy and pale Nephites, proving our ways were superior to our survival.

There is not just one correct way of doing things or perceiving things. It is all up to you on what story you want to make for yourself. Whatever story “works” for you to act in line with reality and with truths is what is helpful. Stories that work against reality are problematic and detract from peace.

[Author]

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