The Tiny Pale Blue Dot

The best way I know to help another person who is feeling discouraged is to show them this picture.

When we think of our worries and ourselves and we look at this picture at the same time…

We are in that moment experiencing what it is to feel refreshingly humbled.

The magnitude of what perspective can do for us hits home in this photograph.

During even the most trying situations, comfort can be felt by seeing this tiny blue dot.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

So, when we think about our current disappointments in the context of them occurring on this tiny pale blue dot then maybe our disappointment wont feel as important as they did a moment ago.

That is the gift of perspective.

If you can bring this kind of perspective into the difficult conversations you have to have in your personal life and career...

You can expect good outcomes to far outweigh the bad ones. 

Here is the above excerpt in a video.