Accessing Your Power. Marcia Wieder

The camaraderie from this catastrophe was a good thing.

      Here’s a story about a woman who was struggling to pay her corporate taxes so she decided to pull equity out of her home. Many banks declined her request because the real estate mar- ket was so soft. She was tenacious and kept looking, until finally one bank gave her the cash she needed. She was able to pay her taxes, which we all know is a good thing.

      A few years later, she needed to move. With the two mort- gages on her house, she was unable to sell the property. The

      house went into foreclosure, which caused the second mort- gage to come due, forcing her into bankruptcy. We definitely would consider this a bad thing. In hindsight, she wished that she had listened to the banks that were refusing her financing and had found another alternative to the second mortgage, such as setting up a payment plan with the IRS. Sometimes when we are dealing with an apparent crisis and our options seem limited, we may make unwise choices that are, as they say, “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

      One reason for this is that as human beings we see life through human eyes, and we tend to only see fragments or pieces at a time. Most of us don’t see the big picture and real- ly don’t know exactly how anything is going to turn out. Inter- estingly, Chinese people are taught to see things differently than Americans. They see the world with a softer vision or focus that allows for a wider perspective. Of course the abili- ty to focus is an important skill, but it can also be limiting.

      Americans are taught to read a letter at a time, a word at a time, leading up to a sentence or a thought at a time and always from left to right. When a Chinese person sees a Chi- nese character, he sees an entire picture and a world filled with emotions and feelings. Reading, our most fundamental skill, has taught us to be fragmented and to perceive the world in a limited way. We can begin to really appreciate the Chinese proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words.”