One of the more important and beneficial things i think a person can do is to live his life from a third-person perspective. If everyone simply took a step backward and listened to/watched what he was doing, i believe the situation of humanity in general would be improved.

Paul told us to have the same mindset as Christ; as obvious as it seems, the fact that's all too often overlooked is that this requires us to change from our natural mindsets. A common complaint about the world is that it's too self-centered, and that's an accurate statement. People are far too concerned about their perspectives to worry about anyone else's or what another person sees that perhaps they don't. The fact that we're all equal creations doesn't mean that we all know the same things - we can learn so much about any given circumstance by taking ourselves out of our own point of view and looking at it differently or listening to someone else's take on it.

If i can listen to myself and say, "You're not making any sense" or "It's not your place to talk," it's time for me to shut up. If i can put myself in a hurting person's shoes and say from their perspective, "I wish he would just listen to me," it's time for me to shut up...if i can look at a situation from someone else's point of view and see that it's going to go the wrong direction unless someone says something, it's time for me to speak up.

If we all stopped focusing on what we want to see happen and practiced the old direction (which is, in some senses, more of a caveat) to "put yourself in someone else's shoes," we could see change. We would almost definitely see more grace in society, something that the currently ruthless world could definitely use.

a brief and terribly undescriptive return - 10.28.04
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- - 07.30.04