Paradigm & Perspective, part 1

How do you see the world, the macro and micro events in your life? How do you interpret them? How to you respond to them? A perspective, according to Webster, is, “a specific point of view in understanding or judging things or events.” A paradigm is a shared set of concept or beliefs within a community. Our paradigm of the world colors and shapes our perspective of things. The beliefs you hold, coming from your background and instruction… moral, religious, & values instruction… color your perspective- the way you interpret and judge the interactions and events in your life. Now I could launch into a discussion about need for paradigms to be based upon truth, however I don’t have the space for such a lengthy discussion. Let’s just make that a given- that a paradigm based on truth and absolutes is better than one that is relativistic and full of inconsistencies. Here’s the point I want to make- a person should hold strongly to their paradigm and remain flexible in their perspective.
I often say in counseling sessions, “You can either change the environment to fit your paradigm, or change your perspective to fit the environment.” Healthy individuals change their perspectives to help them understand and cope with the different environments, events, and circumstances they face. Unhealthy persons demand that the environment change to fit into their paradigms, the way they think life should be lived. They tend to overly focus upon the right and wrong of things and get stuck when it “is all wrong.” They struggle to adjust and usually force others to adjust to fit what they think is right. A good example of the different ways of living is that of Jesus versus the Pharisees.
Both parties had strong paradigms and lived their lives based upon those paradigms (of course the Pharisees’ paradigm was so rigid and impossible to live by, that they themselves failed to follow it and thus Jesus called them hypocrites. Jesus lived out his… in fact, he was his!). The difference is that the Pharisees judged and condemned others for not following their way, whereas Jesus’ perspective allowed him to adapt his response for the environment as needed. For some, like the Pharisees who pushed their faulty paradigm upon others, he was firm and aggressive in his response (Luke 6: 1-11; 14: 1-14). For others, like adulterers and others lost in sin, he was kind, gracious, forgiving, and inviting (John 4). His paradigm never changed, but his perspective did. He changed his perspective to fit the environment whereas the Pharisees tried to change their environment to fit their paradigm. This makes all the difference in the world! See the next post for some examples.