Everyday Canvas

July 4th and Viewpoints

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 
Prompt: What are your plans for the 4th of July with all that is happening?

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I have no other plans than to wear a tee-shirt that has a print in front of it that hails the USA.

Then, no more parades or concerts this year, which we will all miss, and as to the fireworks, I stopped being a fan of those a very long time ago when I saw and heard the cries and howls of all the pets in our neighborhood while our trembling New Foundland (rip) took refuge in between my legs.

We all need a celebrating this year, though, especially yours truly, but we can't necessarily celebrate the same way we did in the past. Like my shirt, it might be flags and red, white, blue colors everywhere. Then, lanterns or Christmas lights maybe. Flowers would help, too, although I like flowering plants in pots or on the ground. Cut flowers turn me off somehow.

Then maybe we can all have a bring-your-own-food party over the internet.

For: "Space Blog Group" 
Prompt: "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?" Henry David Thoreau Write about this quote in your Blog entry today.

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This is such a beautiful quote. I think it goes along the lines of a quote I cut off from a periodical and pasted on my desk that says, “According to some psychiatrists you are sane whenever you are able to take somebody else’s point of view. It’s supposedly that simple.” Of course, Thoreau said it more poetically, but the idea is about the same.

Although it is easy and quite common to forget that our own point of view is not the only way, looking at a situation from another person’s or all others’ viewpoints helps us develop a better perspective, a multi-dimensional one. It also aids us in communicating with others in a better, kinder, and more civilized way.

This shift in focus is difficult because we may think or sense that we are absolutely sure we are right, and if we see things from another point of view, we may have to give up our own. And nobody wants to lose ground due to the inborn or inbred sense of resistance that assures us our standing place in this world.

Then, when someone sees things differently, we might consider that person’s reasons and the events in their life that might have resulted in their way of assessing things. Surely, the same goes for ourselves. Why am I looking at this situation this way? Is this stance coming from my self-interest and/or religious, parental, or educational training?

When we question ourselves often as well as other people this way, we are bound to become better people who create harmony wherever we go in this world.