Want a change? Try a new lens.

Life can be so rich when we open our eyes.

Because two of the most wonderful people in my life spend a great deal of time behind cameras, capturing the moment in that amazing, craftful way, I have started to look at the world in a new way too. With a new pair of eyes.

It’s sometimes overwhelming – all that beauty. I even look at garbage men in a new way. All because of my love and his camera and his heart (and the job he had to photograph those pre-dawn heroes who whisk away our trash). All that insight seeps onto the photo paper, beyond the frame and into our souls. It goes bone deep. And stays there.

I equate that significant shift in perspective to a Sudoku puzzle. You have a square with 81 boxes. Each row, both vertical and horizontal, can only contain one number from one to nine. On some days I can solve a Sudoku puzzle in minutes. On other days I simply don’t see the pattern. I am blind to it. That’s when it is time to put it away for another day. And yet, with a fresh night’s sleep and a different view, I can suddenly see that which was before me all along.

Only I couldn’t see it before now, no matter how hard I tried.

It is funny how much of our lives is impacted by our view of things. We have so much. And yet often we only see that which we don’t have. It’s a devil’s circle of thinking, a downward spiral to an endless abyss of crankiness.

That’s when we need to lift ourselves off the page, grab a new lens, seek a new scene. And suddenly, those missing puzzle pieces snap into place.

Our greatest obstacles in life are ourselves. 

When you feel stuck, put on a new lens. Give it a try. Trust that you have the power to make a change. Because that new outlook won’t come from a store-bought magazine. Or a bottle of wine. Or thousands of hours of watching TV.

That shift can only ever come from you.

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