The View From Above

It is so easy for us to miss the forest through the trees. We live in the age of the “selfie.” The widespread perspective has become warped, where everything revolves around our own perception of ourselves. This causes us to put an undue amount of significance on everything we say and do while taking everything personally. One of the most valuable skills we can cultivate is self-awareness. Self-awareness is typically assumed as one’s preferences in life and “knowing yourself.” But this mentality leads more towards self-obsession. Self-awareness is cultivated by zooming out from self-obsession and seeing the nature of who you are and what you’re a part of.  "How beautifully Plato put it. Whenever you want to talk about people, it’s best to take a bird’s- eye view and see everything all at once— of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets— all blended together and arranged in a pairing of opposites.” Marcus Aurelius.“Consider too the lives once lived by others long before you, the lives that will be lived after you, the lives lived now among foreign tribes; and how many have never even heard your name, how many will soon forget it, how many praises you but quickly turn to blame. Reflect that neither memory nor fame, nor anything else at all, has any importance worth thinking of.” -Marcus Aurelius Take a moment right now to zoom out from where you are. Observe your environment, the people in it, the country you live in, the planet. See yourself connected and part of existence. From this view how big do your problems actually feel? Remember this whenever you feel lost or alone.