THE WISDOM OF THE IVYVERSE

       Perspective. Seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes is often almost impossible. You’ve only ever seen through your own eyes. But getting some practice at doing this is advisable, as it will help you figure out how to act in order to make your outward actions match your inward intentions.

       Sometimes Ivy makes a stab at understanding other people’s perspectives, trying to think like they do:

I supposed, after living in a world like theirs, going through water portals and seeing people fly through the air was refreshing. I guessed anything was exotic if it wasn’t the norm at home. —Ivy, Book 1, Chapter 2

       Ivy has trouble seeing anything odd about herself and her companions at first, but in the above example she was willing to let her new friend Robert get away with some disorientation and confusion.

       She attempts to help other people understand by trying to downplay it sometimes:

“Well, I don’t have super powers either, not really. It’s just one sort of extra thing.” —Ivy, Book 1, Chapter 8

       But it’s still difficult to really get an unusual concept across to someone who can’t be persuaded to think it’s anything other than bizarre:

I couldn’t think of a way to convey to him that I certainly didn’t feel like anything special to myself. I was pretty normal, as far as I was concerned. There was really no way to explain to him that telekinesis was not an earth-shaking concept in my little world, especially since I hadn’t yet found anyone like myself to make me look less like a rarity. —Ivy, Book 1, Chapter 8

       In cases like this, Ivy just has to understand that people need time to get used to the idea of her:

I knew that sometimes I expected people to get used to my strange powers faster than they realistically could. After all, I’d had a lifetime to get used to it, and the people I showed it to were seeing it for the first time. So I needed to try to be understanding, even though it really got old sometimes. —Ivy, Book 1, Chapter 9

       Seeing yourself through other people’s eyes is made more complicated by the fact that anything and everything about you can elicit different responses from different people.

I wondered what it was about me that made some people freak out and other people want to get in my jeans. —Ivy, Book 1, Chapter 5

       How can Ivy (or any of us) be expected to learn to consider and anticipate others’ perspectives if the same actions get different reactions from each person? The answers lie in listening, paying attention, and being open-minded.

“It varies. Some people gasp and back away, and other people prefer to sit there and stare at me and stammer a whole bunch.” —Ivy, Book 2, Chapter 9

       Ivy has learned to deal with plenty of different reactions, and she has ready responses to many of them now that she has practice, experience, and a little intuition going in her interactions with others. But she knows it is never going to be easy, and once that knowledge is firmly understood, the rest becomes a lot easier to deal with.

I decided that since I couldn’t change them, I would have to learn to deal with them, and get real. —Ivy, Book 2, chapter 28

       When you consider another person’s perspective, make sure you’re not just comparing it against your own to decide whether it’s right. Your ears (and mind) should not close when the other person’s mouth opens! The world around you—and the truth—may differ from your opinion.

“The thing about humans is, they assume God is as judgmental as they are.” —Weaver, Book 3, Chapter 17