By Erik Illies

As the stress from school builds our priorities can shift from working to create the best to working to get it done. Hopefully when that happens we can at least recognize the moral infraction being committed, even if we are unable or unwilling to correct it. Regardless, the result is devoid of emotion (positive/ negative) until we assign emotion to it. And often times it is a result of the perspective we take.

So that's what this is about... perspective. Every experience is defined by its perspective, and the perspective is usually a reflection of our emotions. But I like to think that the mirror can work both ways and that our emotions can become reflections of the way we choose to look at things. So far, however, these shifts in perspective are always retrospective, which is okay.

I've rambled too long, I'm lost in my own thoughts now and am typing as randomly as I'm thinking. All I can feel or think are fragments of the chaos inside my head. Never ending chaos that haunts my dreams and impedes clear thought. Fatigue is compounds the madness I see when I close my eyes.

Right now my perspective is from a chair in front of a desk in a studio in a building of a university that I am ready to graduate from, again. But eventually I'll be somewhere else, hopefully happier because of the chair I'm in now. But happiness, or at least some change of emotion doesn't have to wait until I'm gone from here because it is happening right now. I just shifted my perspective to appreciate the aggravation and frustration I'm feeling right now, because I am optimistic it will help me in the future. Already, I hate this chair and desk and studio a lot less. Simply realizing this and saying it is enough to shift my perspective. Imagine how often we don't look at things from another point of view... how many thoughts and feelings could have been different. Be careful of the slippery slope of past speculation.

I also like to believe in the power of optimism. Almost always, things can be better. More often than not, things aren't really bad to begin with (depending on your perspective): insert snare and symbol rim-shot! How great would it be to live life with the greatest possible outcome in mind all the time. Why is it even a notion to have to imagine that kind of life?

I don't even know what I'm thinking anymore, I just know I want them to be happy thoughts. I'll never quiet the loud noises going on in my head, but if I change my way of looking at them just so I might find that I've been listening to beautiful music all along. Looking for the station tuner, trying to dial in a bright blue sunshiny day!