If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”
-Wayne Dyer
Wayne Dyer spent his first ten years in an orphanage after his father walked out leaving his mother penniless. Though he’d been tossed away by his father, a man he’d learn to hate, Dyer survived.
He became a high school counselor, getting troubled teens to focus on positive thinking and their goals rather than their difficulties. In 1976, Dyer took a few weeks off and wrote his first book on that very subject. Your Erroneous Zones instantly became one of the top-selling books of all time, with over 100-million in print today.
Over the years Dyer wrote 40 books and enjoyed all the trappings of success. But, still a gnawing hatred for his father plagued him. Finally, a few years before his death, Dyer visited his father’s grave, planning to “get it all out.” But standing over the grave, he began to see his run-away dad as a flawed human being who perhaps had done the best he could. After years of hate, the rejected son changed the way he looked at his father and his father changed before his eyes.
Today, as protests and violence break out across many cities, we are especially challenged to understand the actions and motivations of others. If we cling to our own point of view, we can never understand another’s position, but when we change the way we look at things, instead of shaking our heads in disbelief we might find empathy and perhaps bring peace.
We desperately need peace,
Jim
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