By Jodi Rae Ingstad

I’m in lust with a new word this week. I think I’ll embark upon a long lasting affair with this new word because it excites the ignition in me.
It makes me feel like a flap-jack flipping and an ugly caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly. It takes things shrouded in dark appear as if they are draped in light.  This word is so powerful that it can turn fear into fancy and hatred into love.  Now wouldn’t that be something you’d eagerly invite into your own life?
Before I tell you the word I am holding hands and flirting with, I need you to know what I’ve been up to this week. I’ve taken it upon myself to notice human nature. I’ve noticed human nature before but I didn’t like what I saw so I pushed it away into the pile of ugly stuff I’d deal with later in life. Now is later so I’m delving right in. I’m taking special interest in deciphering how a working group of people interact. My study on human nature is not sanctioned by any scientific laboratory nor is it recognized by anyone but myself. But I’m thinking it should be. 
What I noticed this week is that though our eyes are open and our vision may be near perfect, we don’t really see the person standing in front of us. We may compliment someone on their haircut or perhaps a job well done. We may have known the person standing in front of us for years so how is it that we’ve never seen them? Husbands see their wives. Congregations see their clergy, employees see their bosses. And yet most people doing the seeing are completely blind.
You spend more time each week in the workplace than you do with your own spouse and children in most cases. You whisper to a co-worker about another as if you’re gathering a gang to beat someone down. You ignore and condescend, blame and discourage. Your tone of voice is hard to translate from barking dog into English. The squint of your evil eye while the co-worker walks by is not unnoticed. You may think I’m writing about you because I so freely use the word “you” but don’t feel threatened because the “you” I speak about is also me at times. I’ve learned it is human nature to be this way and we’ve all done it a time or two or nine-hundred. This is where my positively life altering new word comes in. When practiced, this word can turn dislike into like and failure into success. Drum roll please. The word is: perspective.
My fingers are alive just typing the new word and my eyes are open wide to things I never noticed with this clarity before.  Because of my study this week I want you to know one thing.  I SEE YOU!  This week I didn’t notice your hair or your tie or how fast you walked by.  This is the week I stopped to watch you and you and you.
I watched you care for another despite the fact that you were sick. I watched another one of you give despite the fact you have hardly anything to your name. I watched you walk to assist another despite the fact you’re limping with a bad knee yourself. How dare a tongue lash out at another when it hasn’t first taken a look at the perspective of the people involved?  If we don’t take the time to flirt with the word I lusted over this week we might as well just growl instead of speak to one another. It’s animalistic not to notice the fear and angst of someone else. Properly practicing perspective gives your hardened heart a hug. It spotlights what you perceive as someone’s negative and allows you to show some mercy. Please excuse me now. Me and my perspective are going out to supper.