Sara Hand

It wasn’t until sometime during the 1300’s that some artists began representing the world 3 dimensionally in their work. Prior artworks were 2 dimensional or “flat.” Mathematical concepts inspired the “vanishing point”, a technique that created perspective. It took artists thousands of years to do what children today begin learning in elementary school art class.

The importance of focus

Around this same time period, spurred on by the adventures of Marco Polo, men began to consider that the world might be other than they had imagined. Christopher Columbus, through his exploration of the New World proved that our world was, in fact, not flat either. Life would never be the same as man’s consciousness embraced new dimensions.

Several hundred years later, man again would move into the unknown and impossible. This time, concepts initiated by science fiction writers such as Jules Verne with their voyages to the bottom of the sea, outer space and time travel would be incorporated into investigative procedures. These would allow man to not only travel to great depths and heights, but to actually work for extended time periods in environments that would further a multitude of industries.

It is said, “What the mind can conceive and believe… man can achieve.”

Yet do you ever feel like your life is flat? Perspective can be defined as a view of things or facts in which they are in right relation. When you look around, do you ever feel that your life may be slightly out of focus? Do you ever wonder if there could be more beyond your current experience? Are there things that you have only dreamt of, but have not really considered possible?

Changing your perspective is changing the way you view things. New dimensions that can only be imagined are simply over the horizon if you can only get past the gatekeepers of “shouldn’t” and “couldn’t”. Begin to add richness and increased depth to your life by identifying priorities, and incorporating goals and an action plan.

Clarity and dimension

Then with accountability relationships, regularly reexamine those projections and make adjustments as necessary to keep your course to a new world.

Several years ago at a conference discussing how to help others recover from bad things. The conversations were of hope, vision, and faith and risk and joy. And although these are all thoroughly entwined there are some very unique differences that can move you toward success or leave you languishing behind…and hope is where it starts.

Hope: the stuff that dreams are made of!

Hope knows that there is something beyond what I see today. That potential and possibility exist, and it takes that and projects it onto the screen of my future. This hope acts as a compass guiding and directing my thoughts and actions as I move faithfully forward to the reality of this hope.

 The picture I saw of it “hope” was that of a trellis or an arbor. First, with hope in place…I had a structure that my actions would fill out as I moved towards my future. And second, without it “hope…the potential for my life projected onto the screen of my future”…in place, although I could move forward, my growth would lie unstructured on the ground and unable to reach it’s full potential of growth.

 Langston Hughes in a most famous poem replaces the term “hope” with that of “dream”. In today’s world of economic uncertainty, rapidly changing technology and culture, most of which is represented in the media in negative terms above all else we must guard our hope!