We all know the power of perception and perspective.  How we view something has a lot to do with how we experience it.  A few years ago while involved with Landmark Education, I was introduced to a distinction that shifted my perception about life in a simple and yet dramatic way.

It goes like this:   ***  What if life is a conversation? ***

When you consider this perspective, what do you see?  Well, one thing I see is that conversations are malleable.  They can be easily shaped and formed by our intentions.  So, in considering life as a conversation, life itself becomes more malleable than we may have thought before trying on this perspective.

Another thing I see when I consider life to be a conversation, I'm called to be more responsible about the conversations I generate and perpetuate. Consider this bit of a conversation from "How Capitalism Will Save Us" by Steve Forbes in Forbes Magazine dated November 10, 2008:

"The world is flush with cash. It's frozen because of fear, but the cash is there."

Now, I don't know about you, but most of the news (which is simply conversations) that I've been hearing and reading since November hasn't been talking about the world being flushed with cash, and it isn't talking about it being frozen with fear, but is instead it's coming from a fearful place thus perpetuating the frozen condition.

Isn't it time for us to hold the media accountable for the conversations that it's generating in the world? After all, look how powerful the media is in today's world. Oh, we know that drama and fear sells newspapers and draw us into watching the news shows.  But what many of us have not realized (including those involved with the media) is that reporting fear-based news ends up creating a reality of what we don't want.

Here are a couple simple examples of how we could begin to shift our focus away from what we don't want to more of what we do want.  When the news reports on the unemployment figures, instead of saying that unemployment is up to 8%, why not report that the current employment level is 92%?

Rather than talking about the chance of rain being 30% why not report that the chance of dry conditions is 70%?

It's time to realize that it's impossible to just report on what's happening. That the very act of reporting influences and creates what's likely to happen next.

I know, it's not all that simple, and yet…if life is a conversation, then it's not as complicated to create what we want as we may have thought in the past.

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Personalizing this to Your Life On Purpose
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Okay, we've looked at this from a global perspective. Now, how can you integrate this powerful and empowering distinction into your personal life to bring a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to it?

Here is a 'Call to Action Assignment' that I believe you will find valuable if you take it on this week:

Take a 'conversation inventory' for a week.  Keep a journal or notepad with you for this next week and write down the various conversations that you participate in, making note of the ones you actively generate and those that you participate in with your listening and/or speaking.

At the end of the week, place a check next to the ones that you feel enhance life (yours and others) and an X next to those that detract from life.

And I challenge you to be so bold as to share your insights and results right here.