The Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space. Upon returning to earth on April 12, 1961, he described the beauty of the earth with its magnificent colors, the amazing vastness of space, and he encouraged his fellow earthlings to preserve and improve the beauty of our planet. Not long after this amazing venture into space the Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev reportedly said that Gagarin looked and looked but did not see God. It is interesting how our perspective is always twisted to match what we believe? If your perspective says there is no God, you could possibly look God in the face and not know it. On the other hand, someone else saw the pictures that were taken from space and their response was, “I see God in the beauty of the earth and in all the pictures taken from the earth’s atmosphere.”
I heard a story about two twins who were raised in the same family, and whose father was an alcoholic. One became an alcoholic and the other did not drink alcohol at all. When the alcoholic twin was asked why he became an alcoholic he replied, “because I was raised by an alcoholic.” When the other twin was asked why he did not become an alcoholic, he replied, “because I was raised by an alcoholic.” Again, perspective determines how we can see the same reality and have radically different outcomes.
When we are disciplined for success, we begin to examine our perspectives in order to understand why we see things the way we see them. The more we understand our perspective on any given subject or reality, the more open we can be to learn, grow, go places we have never gone before, and experience things we never thought we would ever experience.