It Depends on How You Look at It:
Eight Vignettes on Perspective
A man's house burned to the ground. Upon hearing of it, the man
said angrily, "This is the fault of oxygen!" For, as he explained,
if there hadn't been any oxygen in the atmosphere, his house never
would have burned.
* * *
When the boss called Smervits and Jenkins into the office, Jenkins
was very nervous because his plan to salvage the Freeble contract
had not worked. Smervits wasn't worried because he had shrewdly
stood by while Jenkins floundered with the contract.
"Jenkins, you failed," the boss said forcefully after the two men
had entered. "That's good," he added, "because it shows that you
tried something. Smervits, you didn't fail, but you didn't try
anything, either. You're fired."
* * *
One day the power went off in the mine, leaving the miners in
absolute darkness. One miner found a match and lit it. "What a
dinky little flame," said one of his companions, with contempt.
"What a great light in the darkness," said another, with awe.
* * *
"Just think," said the man in the orange hard hat, "to us that's just
a useless pile of rock. But to someone with greater vision it has
value. It can be changed by his direction into something useful."
"How's that?" someone asked.
"First it has to be crushed, and then heated in a furnace, to give
up its old properties and take on new ones. Then it can be mixed
with water and molded into something beautiful."
"So that's how you make cement, huh?"
"No," someone said, "that's how you make a Christian."
* * *
An officer came upon a young soldier so weighted down with weapons
and ammunition that he couldn't move. "You know why you aren't
attacking the enemy, don't you?" asked the officer.
"Yes," replied the soldier. "I'm waiting for more ammunition."
* * *
Once in a pleasant garden there stood a tree, from which, legend
said, God himself would one day reign. But instead, a group of
wicked men broke in and chopped the tree down. They hacked the tree
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