From Chapter 11 “Perspective” in Ingredients of Outliers. Food for Thought You alone have the power to change the course of your life. If you can't, and many believe they can't, at least change your perspective. Perspective changes as we age. What was once very important is now less important. Try to remember that when you need a perspective injection. In Other Words What makes life easy or difficult or any other way we judge it for that matter is perspective. What matters most about your life and mine are not the objective facts or reality of it but rather the perspective from … [Read more...]
Turning Lemons into Lemonade
From Chapter 11 “Perspective” in Ingredients of Outliers. Lemons? Or Lemonade? You’ve probably heard this century-old bit of wisdom about perspective: “If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” Although it didn’t originate with him, the late Dale Carnegie, well-known writer, lecturer and selfimprovement guru, commented on it in his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. First published in 1946, the book is still in print today, with more than six million copies sold in dozens of languages. “The fool,” he wrote, “if he finds that life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: … [Read more...]
Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life
From Chapter 11 “Perspective” in Ingredients of Outliers. Life is simply about perspective. If ranked, this is the most important of all the lessons I’ve learned. Simply changing your perspective changes everything. For example, I recently had a patient who was in moderate respiratory distress from the pulmonary embolism we diagnosed in the emergency department. He was also dying of colon cancer. When I told him about this latest diagnosis, he said, “Whew, at least I’m still on the right side of the turf.” For most of us—me included—the thought of a pulmonary embolism would be … [Read more...]