Words are powerful and literally shape our reality.
Zoom-Out Signposts are short phrases that point to an underlying reality. They point us in the right direction in order to cultivate a zoom-out mindset.
You can also think of Zoom-Out signposts as mantras that we can use as tools to focus our minds on a particular perspective or meta-perspective and remind us of what matters.
The word mantra originates from Sanskrit meaning a “sacred message or text, charm, spell, counsel.”
Mantras are a great way to harness the “magick” of words and the power of perspective.
Many of these signposts are famous quotes from wise people. Others are original mantras of Zoom-Out.
“Zoom-Out to find the most helpful perspective”
Zoom-Out MOTTO
“All Perspectives are wrong but some are helpful”
Zoom-Out SIGNPOST
“Default perspectives can be overridden”
Zoom-Out SIGNPOST
“The whole is more than the sum of its parts”
Zoom-Out SIGNPOST (Aristotle)
“Attention control is power”
Zoom-Out SIGNPOST (Aristotle)
Below are some signposts / mantras from “honourary zoomologists”.
“Reality is plural”
– Robert Anton Wilson

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are”
– Anaïs Nin
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”
– Wayne Dyer
“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.”
– John Lubbock
“The map is not the territory”
– Alfred Korzybski, 1933
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– Shakespeare’s Hamlet

“Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions.
– Corrie Ten Boom
Learn to see great things great and small things small.”

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality”
– Seneca, Stoic philosopher
“Strong opinions, weakly held”
– Paul Saffo

“Comparison is the thief of joy”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Happiness is reality minus expectations“
– Tom magliozzi
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
– Epictetus, Stoic philosopher, A.D. 55 – 135

“We are what we think.
– The Buddha, 563 – 483 BC
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”

“The reason we suffer is we don’t see the world clearly”
– The Buddha, 563 – 483 BC

See also the Zoom-Out quotes.